


Me and You and the Cosmic Bullshit

by fractalsinthesky



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (Comics), Guardians of the Galaxy (Movies)
Genre: Asgardian Politics are Sketch as Hell, Canon-Typical Violence, F/F, Light Angst, M/M, Not Actually Unrequited Love, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Psychic Abilities, Relationship(s), Sharing a Bed, The Phoenix Force, assholes in love, expect cheese, yeah there's sex but it's pretty well telegraphed if you want to skip it
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-01-02
Updated: 2018-09-04
Packaged: 2019-02-27 06:12:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 13
Words: 59,534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13242135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fractalsinthesky/pseuds/fractalsinthesky
Summary: Rocket isn't great with emotions at the best of times, but it's not like Quill's much better. Maybe exploring a mutual interest in music and alcohol will help. Maybe getting caught up in Asgardian drama will spark something. Who knows.Tagged for the movies and the comics because I like both and ended up doing an amalgamation? Will change if it becomes an issue.





	1. The Trouble with Grubtor

A thousand years ago, the great cream-walled canyon that spanned a full eighth of Aethra’s smallest moon’s surface had cradled silver mercury streams that flashed and glittered under the system’s dual suns like diamonds. When Aethra’s population became capable of space-travel, that mercury had secured their place in the galactic economy as raw-goods suppliers. Tech, arms, pharmaceuticals, the arts—the markets were more than willing to take the metal as fast as Aethra extraction teams could secure and purify it. As is usually the case with these sorts of things, ravenous demand soon exceeded readily available supply. Drilling operations were set up on the moon’s surface, eager little workers sucking what was left from subterranean fissures, accepting the occasional devastating industrial accident as the mining triggered quakes. When it became clear that the price of maintaining operations was exceeding the throttled profits, Aethrans abandoned them wholesale, leaving colonies effectively stranded and starving in the shadows of inactive equipment. 

The moon became a dumping ground for undesirables—prisoners, interstellar drifters, and so on. In the absence of a sustainable legitimate export, an open-air market specializing in goods that weren’t strictly legal took root and blossomed, drawing even more colorful characters to the moon while the populace of the planet below got to pocket the profits and feign ignorance. The only problem was that in order to keep a good underground trade system going, you couldn’t exert much oversight on the materials brought in. So, when a dim-witted Borgrexiann brought a whole shipment of Grubtor kits in to unload as “exotic pets” and accidentally released them from their pods, there was no one to stop the little flaknards from escaping into the slums and industrial ruins, where they promptly did what growing Grubtors did—ate everything in sight as their unchecked metabolisms did developmentally in one Galactic standard week what most species took decades to accomplish. And when you’ve got eighty of those suckers, each half the size of a Chitauri Leviathan, rampaging a lawless moon in search of more to consume, you call on whoever’s got the biggest guns and the ability to mobilize quickly without a whole lot of negotiation. If you want all that and aren’t overly concerned about collateral damage and want to avoid media exposure, you call the Guardians of the Galaxy.

“You’ve gotta be kurtacking kidding me!” snarled Rocket, twisting in the air and boosting his aero-rig as a boulder screamed past, ruffling his fur in its wake. 

“You want to fill the channel with whining, you can go back to the ship,” crackled Quill’s voice over the comms. The human had taken Drax to search the canyon and outlying mining facilities. Gamora and Groot were tag-teaming the shabby little town and ferrying what remaining civilians they could find to the extraction point. Rocket was charged with ground zero—the sprawling market itself. “You want to kill stuff? Shut up and kill stuff.”

“I want to kill stuff, alright,” he muttered, peppering the purple hide of the Grubtor below him with a few rounds before it launched another massive rock in his direction. “I just prefer to do it when I’m gettin’ paid! What, do you think Groot just grows ammo? We wish for ship fuel, and the tanks magically fill up?” 

Drax replied, and something in his tone let Rocket know it would be a long one, so he tuned out and focused on the fight. It was boring when they split up. Then all this was just…work. Didn’t help that they were playing the role of glorified exterminators this round. 

The Grubtor below threw a handful of goods from the nearby stalls. He tucked and veered to the side, but some kind of pottery caught him, shattering against his arm. He grunted, switching the repeating rifle he carried for something with a little more personality. The shoulder-mounted launcher bucked satisfyingly in his claws as it spat blazing lumps of napalm onto the unfortunate Grubtor, impacting just below the shoulder of its first set of limbs. The goop sizzled on impact and ate eagerly through the skin and muscle below. It bellowed in agony, falling back on its intact side as if it could escape the pain. Grubtor’s didn’t have thinner skin on their stomachs, but they did have some nicely flammable oil secreted from glands beneath their legs. He swooped closer and lit it up.

“Try to hit me now, ugly!” he yelled, teeth bared in a grin. 

The Grubtor’s stomach melted and it tried to stand, slipping in its own entrails and falling again, flames lapping at every inch of flesh. Its howling reached an intolerable volume, and he winced, ears flicking back. The smell wasn’t great either. All and all, it probably wasn’t a fantastic way to die. Ugh. He patted the napalm launcher’s warm barrel and slung it back over his shoulders, pulling his rifle back out and drifting over the Grubtor’s head. He was careful to stay out of range in case the thing still had the strength to make a grab for him, but even so the heat was considerable. 

“Murdered you,” he said, sending a bolt through one of the animal’s primary eyes. It jerked and was silent. A crash off behind him signaled the approach of another, and he flew towards it, scanning the remains of the market for an edge.

Bolts of brightly colored fabric, shards of pottery and glassware, various trinkets and gadgets were strewn across what had once been a rushing artery of commerce. Tents were trampled, display racks reduced to splinters. Coins of various origin glittered in the detritus, and he sighed. Glarkging Grubtors. Every time they showed up, it was something like this. Destruction, innocents gobbled up, and another perfectly good black market taken from the galaxy. Maybe he’d salvage something from the mess once the not-so-little pests were dealt with. 

The others sounded off in his ear—a yelp, an enraged roar, whoops, taunts. Standard battle chatter. The next Grubtor’s back reared up above the wreckage momentarily, and he cut the boosters to his aero-rig, rolling for cover as he hit the stone floor. Didn’t want to be spotted yet.

He crouched down by an overturned display case that had once held boraxian-tempered knives. The till lay on its side next to him, and he scooped up the gold coins that had spilled out of its drawer. Nice. He took a knife as well, eyeing the edge critically before resheathing it and stowing it in his loot-bag. Now if this bazaar was laid out with any sense, they’d be getting into some real weapons ahead. 

He bounded forward, checking the contents of each shattered stall he passed, pocketing anything easily accessible with value. The sound of splintering wood and breaking glass was getting louder, and he dropped the weapon mods he’d been inspecting, drawing himself up and running toward the noise. Handily enough, there was an explosives outlet ahead, grenades and mines and other fun little surprises laying out in the open. He snagged a few that looked pretty standard and darted into the open, kicking hard off the ground and activating his aero-rig. This would either be cool as glarkg or the most embarrassing thing he’d done today, but without witnesses those were odds he’d take.

The Grubtor was only a few stalls ahead, and was taken aback by the sight of the fuzzy projectile screaming towards it. It spread its maw wide to roar, and choked on a mouthful of grenades, swallowing instinctively. Rocket veered off as soon as he’d thrown, discarded pins landing below him with cheerful jingles. He spotted a thick spur of stone to the back of the tents, and took cover behind it, peeking around its side and trying not to laugh. The Grubtor was shuffling uncertainly, swinging its head this way and that in search of the thing that had flown by. 

Beat. 

Boom. It seemed to buck for a second, neck jerking, and then a secondary explosion ripped it open in a glut of electric blue gore and white shards of bone. He whooped and punched a fist up in the air. 

“Two more for me!” he hollered, jogging on and helping himself to a celebratory gun from the next vendor. “What does that bring us to? That’s almost all of them, right?”

“I am Groot.”

He cocked his head. “For real? I coulda sworn we hit seventy-five already.”

“Seventy-two by my count,” said Gamora. Even after hours of intensive fighting and hauling civilians out of rubble, she sounded unfazed.

“You sure? I took out twenty-five.” He scratched an ear idly and took off again, gaining altitude and scanning for his next mark. No purple in sight.

“Quill and I have slain thirty-eight beasts!” Drax was breathless, and sounded euphoric.

Rocket snickered. “Oh wow, a whole nineteen apiece! You kids need me to come over and show you how it’s done?”

“I myself have vanquished twenty-four, furry pest,” came the predictably defensive response.

“Hey, that’s not fair!” protested Quill. He sounded distant. Must’ve lost his comm again. Dummy. It wouldn’t take Rocket long to make a new one, but it was the principle of the thing. 

“Do not lose your temper, Peter—channel your energy into your combat and you may out-kill the rodent yet,” advised Drax helpfully.

“No, Drax, I—” there was a crush of static and Rocket held his breath. The audio cleared quickly, though, and Quill sounded fine.

“We’re working as a team, Drax!” he was saying. “It doesn’t matter who lands the last blow since we both put in work bringing each of ‘em down.”

“I do not think that is how it works,” Drax said dismissively.

Rocket snickered. “Sounds to me like he’s just makin’ excuses, Draxie. You keep up the good work, and let us know if Quill’s slowin’ you down too much.”

“I will, Rocket, thank you.” The dude took everything seriously, but sometimes it worked out.

“You know what, Rocket? You can bite me.” He could hear the indignant expression in Quill’s voice, and grinned.

“No thanks, Pete. I know where you’ve been.”

“Eat a d—”

“We’ve brought down fourteen,” sighed Gamora. She knew what was coming.

“Huh, fourteen, you say?” gloated Rocket, doing a tight loop-de-loop in the air. “Can, ah, can any of you guys tell me what that adds up to?”

“I am Groot!” The big tree was telling him not to rub it in, but he couldn’t help himself.

“That’s right, buddy! Seventy-seven.”

“I am Groot.” 

“Sure, that’s what you said. Hm, seventy-seven, huh? Correct me if I’m—”

“Yes, Rocket, you were right.” Gamora’s exasperated voice was hilariously petulant. He’d done in five minutes what a day’s worth of heavy combat couldn’t, and if you asked him, that was something to be proud of. 

He decided to push it. “Sorry? Your comm cut out. Could you repeat that?”

“Don’t be a trug, man,” admonished Quill, but he could hear a smile.

He decided not to push it. “Just checking. I’m all out of targets over here. Anybody aching for my illustrious presence?”

The comms were silent, and even though he’d been expecting it, he scowled.

“Great! More time to get acquainted with all this stuff those merchants left behind, then.” 

He skimmed low, checking stalls and scooping up anything that looked good. His loot-bag filled up quickly, and he didn’t have much room left in his pockets. His stomach twinged, and he wondered if they could bring some Grubtor back to the ship and fry it up. That’s a lot of meat destined to spoil. Anything with blue flesh was kind of unappetizing, though. And Quill and Drax had relatively sensitive stomachs. Maybe best not to experiment.

“Anybody know if we can eat these things?” he asked, touching down in the curio section and busting open the nearest register.

“I am Groot.” 

“I know you’re not picky, Groot, but I’m really more concerned with, you know, whether or not the rest of us can digest ‘em without droppin’ dead.”

“Why risk it?” Gamora sounded bored. “We have rations aboard the ship, and will likely be offered food upon our return to Aethra.”

“Just not into waste. Also I’m pretty sure Drax ate the last of our haprow stew, so that just leaves us with the protein packets.” Something beneath a fold of tarp caught his eye. Carved wood. He picked it up and examined it, plucking the taut silver strings experimentally. Didn’t sound awful.

“And what’s wrong with those?”

Rocket, Quill, and Drax made disgusted noises simultaneously.

“Gam, it’s like that powdered bone thing the Kree eat as a palate cleanser. But less flavorful.” Quill’s voice faded out, and Drax laughed. The two must’ve found another Grubtor.

“Yeah, and the instant it touches any surface of your mouth it just, like, sticks and everything is dry as hell. And when you take a drink, it just gets doughy and—“ He worked as he talked, tearing a small square of tarp away and folding it around the small instrument, tucking the bundle safely away into a pouch on his hip.

“Fine! Okay, I’ll finish the protein packs.” She sounded amused despite herself. “But tonight we should avail ourselves of the Aethran hospitality.”

“It’s hard to turn down free food,” agreed Rocket. “Hope they’ve got—”

A hoarse cry ripped through the conversation, and Rocket instantly angled himself towards the canyon, pressing down on the boost. The wind stung his face, grit getting in his mouth, but he urged the rig faster. 

“Rocket, if you’re still free, I could really use a hand here!” Quill’s voice filtered through the rush of air.

“Way ahead of you, as usual, Quill. Where are you guys?”

“Hold on—I’ve got—”

“Quill?” He couldn’t tell if the human had trailed off or had been cut off. Panic bubbled up in his throat, but he swallowed it down. “Hey moron, forget to finish your sentence?”

He held his breath, straining to hear a reply. Nothing. A flash of green ahead caught his eye, and a flare arced high against the pale rose of the sky. He adjusted course and arrowed in on the site. The ground rippled in shadow beneath him, cold drafts puffing up from the deep chasms. Whatever stone the canyon was made of must’ve had quartz in it, because flecks dazzled in the sun, almost blinding him as he flew. He could hear Grubtor bellowing getting louder. Sounded like multiple targets. Dimly he wondered how much power was left in his rig. Shouldn’t have messed around so much earlier. What if it gave out before he reached Quill? Closer. Stone flew by beneath his boots, and he caught the scent of the flare smoke. Close enough now. Worry about the rig later.

He slowed, pulling his napalm launcher off his back and hoisting it into position as he dove into the shade and into the fracas. Three Grubtor were bunched around a dim gap in the canyon wall, snarling and swiping at the guardians taking shelter there. Rocket couldn’t quite see Peter or Drax, but there was some blood smeared on the surrounding stone, marking a clear trail into the crevice. Orange bolts fired intermittently from the darkness within, but didn’t seem to be doing much.

They were too close for the napalm. If he shot, some of the ordnance could splash into the gap and possibly hit his teammates. Not happening.

“Hey, you purple flaknards!” he snarled, switching to his rifle and taking aim. “Let’s play ‘look-at-the-guy-who’s-gonna-kill-ya'!”

All three turned to his voice, and he fired three rounds. The first found its home in the closest Grubtor’s eye, and it crumpled to the ground. His second shot sunk into one of another beast’s secondary eyes, and it howled, pawing desperately at the wound. The third bolt clipped off the final target’s browridge, leaving a bright blue track in its wake. It snorted and shook its head, then charged towards Rocket. He took another shot with the rifle, the bolt ripping through the animal’s cheek in a spray of blue, and jetted up out of reach again, fumbling for one of his milder bombs. Got it. Button. Throw. It landed at the Grubtor’s feet and it shuffled forward, jaws slavering, gaze locked on Rocket. 

“Boom. Murdered you.” He mimed shooting a gun at the thing below him, and the bomb exploded right on cue, virtually halving it and sending a gout of blue up into the air. Aw, glarkg—warm blood splattered against his side, and his lip curled reflexively as fine droplets landed on his cheek and muzzle. Krutackin’ nasty. Least they didn’t bleed acid. A high-pitched beeping from the aero-rig caught his attention, and he cursed again, descending as rapidly as he dared. How long had the low-charge alert been going off?

He was about six feet from the ground when the rig lost power, and he fell like a stone, barking at the impact. He’d curled up, but the force of the fall still snapped his head to the stone hard enough to make him dizzy. Couldn’t afford this—still had another target to take out. The wounded Grubtor had recovered by now, and was loping away from the crevice and bearing down on Rocket. 

“Bigger and badder than you have tried to eat me, you know,” he told it, fighting the urge to vomit. He drew the repeater from his hip and started firing, staggering to his feet. 

Behind the growing purple figure, Quill squeezed out of the crevice and ran after it, shooting high. Orange bolts sank into the thing’s back. Red bolts from Rocket’s gun sizzled into its chest, neck, jaw. He aimed for the ruined socket and sent a few rounds into the blue mess. That made the thing pull up, but the pain only seemed to enrage it. It roared and launched itself at Rocket. He rolled to the side, a split-second too slow, and the Grubtor caught him by the tail.

He fired at random as the world spun, screaming. He could feel himself rising, the pressure around his tail merciless, but he wasn’t swinging as much. Vision clearing—just doubled now. Fine. He aimed for both deep indigo gullets below him and sent a few shots in between for good measure, then the pain in his tail went away and he was falling and he was surrounded by hot, wet stink. Ugh, was this how it ended? Eaten? Not even something cool like an explosion? A sharp pressure slammed into his side and he squeezed his eyes shut. But that was it. No teeth, no suffocating esophageal restriction—just a vague gravitational pull. He opened his eyes and looked out. The smell of burnt flesh surrounded him, and there was a warm light ahead. 

He crawled out of the dead Grubtor’s mouth and shook himself, blood and saliva flying off his fur and armor in ropes.

“That one counts as mine,” called Quill. The man jogged up to Rocket and deactivated his helmet, looking him over with concern. “You’re okay?”

“Won’t be ‘okay’ until I’ve had a shower, but otherwise I’m good.” His head hurt, and his side hurt and his tail hurt, but he could complain when they were back on the ship and clean and headed toward the next disaster. There was a panic in Pete’s wide blue eyes that didn’t belong, and it wasn’t the time to be a trug. “Are you—”

“I’m good. Drax is not. Your rig?” That wasn’t all he was asking, and Rocket swiped the front of his uniform as clean as he could manage while looking casual.

“Drained.” He nodded his permission, unable to stop his ears from flicking back as Quill grabbed him by the rig’s harness and propelled them both forward to the crack in the canyon face. Drax’s huge tattooed form was stuffed in there pretty good, and he looked pale. “What happened?” 

“We got greedy.” Quill reactivated his helmet, reaching in awkwardly and maneuvering the larger man forward. Rocket clambered up into the gap and got behind Drax, pushing and adjusting slack limbs when the big guy got stuck. There was a field tourniquet wrapped around the Destroyer’s arm and an ugly scrape over his forehead. Rocket sucked his teeth when he got a good look at the wound on Drax’s arm. No wonder Pete was queasy.

Between them, they managed to get Drax out without causing any further injuries.

“Hey Gam,” called Quill, hands on his hips and staring down at Drax’s limp form. “You and Groot about wrapped up with the townsfolk?”

“Yes,” she replied. “Can Drax make it back to the ship?”

“I was thinkin’ we bring the ship to Drax,” he said. “I got the tourniquet on pretty quick, but he still lost a lot of blood. Plus, you know, dude’s glarkgin’ heavy and we’re down an aero-rig.”

Rocket kicked a stone and watched it scutter across the dirt. ‘Heavy’ was an understatement. Even if his rig was working, he wasn’t sure that he and Peter put together could carry Drax for much distance. 

“Okay,” said Gamora. “We’ll come to you. Anything you need prepped for the medbay, Rocket?”

He grunted. “Just the usual. Looks like a relatively clean cut. Deep, but clean.” He’d probably need extra tissue goo, but it wasn’t an immediate concern.

“Be there shortly.”

And then they waited. The dust from the fighting settled, and Rocket could smell blood in the heat, and a slight sweetness of decay already. Or maybe that was just Grubtor halitosis sinking into his fur. He shuffled his feet, wondering if Quill could smell it. Probably. It was a pretty strong stench. Even his crappy human nose would pick it up. Hopefully the mask was filtering most of it out.

“We came up on a fork,” said Quill, crouching over Drax and waving insects away from the injury site. “Saw a Grubtor straight ahead and went for it. Didn’t hear the two down the other branch.”

Rocket nodded, sneaking looks at his friend. Couldn’t read his face with the mask up, but his shoulders were tense and he was doing that thing with his hand—rubbing his thumb over the knuckles of his forefinger again and again—that he always did when he was beating himself up over something. His own fingers itched at the sight, and he could feel his tail starting to switch.

He cleared his throat. “The big idiot will heal up fine. He always does.”

Quill grunted, dissatisfied. “We should’ve just held and let it come to us. We’d found a chokepoint—they’d have come one at a time and it wouldn’t have been a problem.”

He rubbed the back of his head, gingerly examining the spot where he’d cracked his skull on the rock. A little swollen, and probably bruised to hell. “That’s one possibility. ’S also possible that you’d have drawn one but the others would have gone deeper into the canyon. Time is vital with these things—if we’d lost even one it woulda hit spawning size by nightfall, and we’d have to do this all again tomorrow.”

Quill looked up at him, the red viewports inscrutable. “Seriously?”

Rocket jerked his thumb over his shoulder at the closest corpse. “Grubtors change skin color every instar. Little flaknards pop out ice-blue, go through an ass-load of other stages, and turn orange when they’re about to spawn. Stage right before orange is purple. We garked ‘em just in time.”

Quill looked down to Drax again, and nodded. His fingers stilled. “Thanks.”

Rocket’s face felt warm and he scoffed, sauntering away to check out the nearby corpse. “Ain’t nothin’ to thank me for. It’s the truth.”

The familiar thin whine of their ship’s engines caught his attention, and he squinted up at the sky. Copper sunlight glinted off the approaching craft’s bulkhead as it touched down on the canyon ridge above them. Shortly after, a small green figure launched itself off the edge and plummeted towards them, pumping her rig to slow her descent just enough to not be suicidal. He sneered, but made a mental note to try controlled falls once he’d recharged his rig. Looked kinda fun.

She touched down gracefully, cloak billowing. There was a small cut on her cheek, but it was closing as Rocket watched. Hair somehow perfect despite the day’s work. The only real evidence that she’d been in battle was the blue blood spattered across her torso and soaking her gloves. Her eyes were on Drax, a small crinkle of concern between her brows.

“We’ve killed all eighty, yes?”

Quill nodded, hauling Drax to his feet, slinging the uninjured arm over his shoulder. Gamora joined him, finding a grip on his aero-rig. Rocket jumped up, grabbing the back of it and bracing his feet on the hilts of Drax’s knives. More weight, but a second trip would be time and energy they didn’t have to expend. Gamora counted down, and she and Quill took off simultaneously. The lip of the canyon fell down to meet them, the dead Grubtors fell away below, and then the three were hauling Drax’s limp body up the loading ramp and into the cool interior of home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm relatively new to this fandom, so any tips or pointers you may have would be welcome! Also always looking to improve as a writer, so don't hesitate if you have advice to offer. Wasn't sure about whether to use comics-expletives or what I'm used to, so let me know if it comes across as forced or anything. Hope you're doing well, wherever you're reading from, and that this made you smile.


	2. Depeche Mode

Rocket changed out of his armor and took a quick shower to get the worst of the blood and dirt off, then spent the next hour in the medbay, patching Drax up again and running a few brain diagnostics in case that scrape was worse than it looked. It wasn’t. He dressed the injury sites, administered some antisedan and left the big guy with a blanket to wake up in privacy. Standard stuff. Familiar. Kinda nice after a full day, but da’st did his everything hurt. He crunched a few pain relievers as he made his way up to the central hub. 

“I am Groot!” Smooth branches wrapped around his waist and hoisted him up into a leafy hug.

He squirmed, grinning. “Watch the ribs, bud. I missed you too.”

Groot’s giant eyes danced, and he sprouted a few waxy white flowers around his crown that quickly filled the air with a sweet perfume. “I am Groot.”

Rocket scowled. “Yeah, well you smell—smelled…like sweaty Hapmurk. Plus, you know, I did get the most kills this time. And then I totally saved Drax’s life. I earned the right to a little stink.”

“I am Groot,” allowed the big tree, setting him back down gently, and returning to his study of the dataholos. Rocket jumped up on the edge of the display table and scanned the file. Aethran general history and information, etiquette guides, cuisine, local news updates.

“Their government’s doing the thing?”

“I am Groot.”

“Ugh. I hate politics. They should just give us some credits and wish us happy trails.”

“I am Groot.”

“Right? I mean it’s not like they want this getting outside the system.”

“I am…Groot?”

Rocket considered, scratching behind his ear and scowling when he felt matted fur and tackiness. He examined his hand and groaned at the blue gunk under his claws. “It’s always possible. I’ll see you later—I gotta take another krutacking shower if we’re stickin’ around for the dinner.”

He hopped down, wincing as his ribs complained, and trotted back to the refresher compartment. Locked. He listened for a minute and groaned when he heard fleeting brassy notes above the sound of rushing water. Quill, naturally. No chance of hot water, then.

He stomped off to his room, securing the door and searching the piles of armor and various casual clothes for something the Aethran high council might consider presentable. He sniffed and curled his lip at the stink rising from his discarded armor. Okay, that might be a priority. Glarkging foul. He gingerly emptied the pockets and his loot-bag out onto the floor for later inspection, and dragged the armor behind him into laundry. Gamora’s stuff was already cycling through one unit, but the other was free, so he threw the rank pile in and set it for a double wash and a steri-round. Back to the loot.

He catalogued until he heard the shower turn off, and then ran out into the hall. Peter was just getting out, towel around his waist and steam rising off the pink skin of his broad shoulders. The human smiled and ruffled his still-wet hair, nodding to Rocket as they passed each other. The fake pine-scent of Quill’s shampoo was strong straight out of the shower, and it filled his nose with almost physical force. 

“’Bout time, Quill. Sure you ain’t part-Atlantean?” Rocket shot to his back, getting a good-natured middle finger for his trouble. He grinned and darted into the refresher compartment, cutting off a still-groggy Drax and keying the door shut in his face. 

“Sorry, Draxie, I got here first,” he called through the metal as the man hammered on it in protest. “Rules is rules.”

He activated the water as Drax responded, stripping quickly and hopping in. It steamed as it came out. Huh. He got lucky.

“What’s that?” he yelled over the water towards the muffled complaints behind the door. “Can’t hear ya, buddy.”

Drax kept trying for a few minutes, but gave up faster than he had the last time. He was learning.

Rocket smirked under the force of the water, basking in the heat and letting the stream soak into his fur. The back of his skull stung a little, a few dark flakes of blood washed down by his paws. He scraped at the irritation and picked off a scab, flicking it down the drain. Felt like a small abrasion over what would no doubt develop into an impressive but inconsequential knot. Nothing worrisome. He tipped his head up, closed his eyes, and let the fine spray play over his face.

When the water started to cool, he began combing through his fur with his claws, untangling mats and dislodging residual globs of Grubtor gore. He didn’t usually use the soaps and oils and goop that the others did, but when he’d get a particularly bad case of stink he’d borrow a little of whatever didn’t smell ridiculous. 

Gamora’s stuff used to be scentless, but either she’d suspected his theft or she’d decided to spice things up a little, because she’d started getting shampoos that were supposed to smell like rain or herbs or sweet pastries. It was bad. But apparently it worked for Thors, since Angela’s visits were becoming more frequent and prolonged. No accounting for taste.

He sniffed everything cautiously and drizzled some of the least-offensive concoction over himself, scrubbing viciously until he got a decent lather going and his claws didn’t snag on clumps or tangles anymore. His skin was buzzing pleasantly, even though the temperature had passed from lukewarm to cold, and he started humming aimlessly. The noise settled inevitably into one of Quill’s beloved Earth songs. Melody was easier for him to remember than the words, but those came through in snatches, eventually, and he began to sing under his breath.

“New sound, all around—you can hear it too…” He tapped his paws a little, enjoying how it felt to splash. “Doo doo, dooty-doo. Something me and you.”

He combed out his tail, keeping an ear out for eavesdroppers. Not that he’d be able to hear much over the water, but he lived with some clumsy flarknards. 

“New night, feels right knowing that you’re here.” He raised his voice, liking the way it rang out in the enclosed space. “Dancing with you all the time, and don’t you think that it’s a crime!” 

He grinned and continued, humming and bouncing to the remembered beat. He’d been arrested more than a few times before joining up with Quill and the whole Guardians thing, but never for dancing. At least, not yet. How bad would you have to be to get arrested for it?

He opened his mouth and let the shower fill it, then spat it all out at his feet, running his long tongue around his teeth. Nothing hurt or was missing. He arched his back against the stream, steeling himself to leave the water. His room probably still stunk like Grubtor and he wasn’t overly thrilled by the prospect of dressing fancy for Aethran nobility, or whatever their upper class called themselves. People this far out of Corps space still expected a certain veneer of dignity to the Guardians of the Galaxy, and while Gamora had the poise and Pete could occasionally summon the charm to pass as respectable, none of them had the patience for diplomacy.

“Ughhh,” he groaned, switching the water off and shaking himself vigorously. They better have good food at this banquet thing. And alcohol. A whole glarkg-load of alcohol. 

He snagged a towel from the clean stash in the stock cupboard. Only two left. Someone was gonna get stuck with the common laundry soon. His nose twitched and he took another towel, wrapping both around himself. He’d stash these in his room and in the unlikely event that he needed a relatively clean one soon, he wouldn’t have to do any work to get it.

He opened the door and made his way back to his room. His communicator was blinking with a message, so he dropped the towels once his door had sealed and jumped over the mess of loot and scrap on his floor, landing on the cot and bouncing over to the workbench. The red light glowed on the various tools and spare materials cluttered on the work surface, casting blinking shadows. He keyed the comm and it flashed a new entry in the private channel he shared with Quill. 

_Nice pipes, furball—I knew you liked my tunes_

He tsked irritably, but felt a warmth spreading through his chest at the thought that Pete might actually like his voice. He dismissed it, though, tamping the wisps of soft feelings down with a scowl. The guy was a trug—he was just being sarcastic like always. That was their thing. Two trugs that broke shit and saved the day. Glarkging idiot.

He tapped out a quick response, ears flattened.

_i dont like them. theyre just so annoying they get stuck in my head_

He closed the holowindow with a flick of his hand and picked his way around the mess on the floor back to the purloined towels. Rocket piled them over an arm and stowed them in a nearly-empty cubby near his bed. Clean armor was in the hollow above, and he spent a few minutes pawing through what remained before he unearthed a dark blue jumpsuit without noticeable stains. Good enough. It had hidden pockets for weapons, which he fully intended to take advantage of—diplomatic dinner with the leaders of Aethra or no, nobody would catch Rocket unprepared for a fight.

His comm flashed again, and he looked over at it, unable to suppress a smirk. He had work to do, though. Didn’t want to seem desperate, anyway. If there was one thing certain in life out gallivanting across the galaxy, it was that Quill never passed up a chance to run his mouth. Or, fingers, in this case. 

He returned to the loot, sorting by value and function. Some of this stuff he could keep for himself. There were a few weapons mods in particular that were innovative enough to entertain him for a bit. Maybe even lay the groundwork for something new of his own. Some pieces he’d grabbed because he’d recognized them as cheap, flashy garbage he could flip easily. Some were so abysmally flawed that they’d likely cause an otherwise perfectly functional gun to jam or overheat or worse. Those were pretty funny. He could spend slow days reverse-engineering them—both out of curiosity as to whether they were intentionally designed to be that dangerous for the theoretical user, and as a challenge to his skills, in case he could learn new techniques for future sabotage. The rest he’d liquidate. Sell to some fence or another along their way or break down into usable components. 

The tarp-wrapped instrument caught his eye, and he picked it up. Had a comforting weight to it. An expensive weight. Rocket glanced at the comm on his workbench again, and took the parcel to his cot. He unwrapped it and set it in front of himself. There was something appealing about the smooth, even shape of it. Like a perfectly round burl, cut in half and hollowed, strung with silvery wire that rang out a soft, liquid chime when he brushed his claws over it. Pretty enough. He peered closer at the strings, trying to discern what kind of metal they’d been crafted from, but the color was hard to pin down—they kept shifting between a buttery white gold and a pure silver. No scent. He touched the tip of his tongue to one, but it tasted like…like snowmelt and ozone. 

He rested back on his haunches, regarding the thing. He wasn’t a huge believer in gut feelings in general, but he was a master tactician—a technical genius and an analytical thinker, a cynical trug that could wheel and deal with the worst of them and spot a set-up from a star system away. All things considered, his gut feelings were probably better than most people’s, and his gut was telling him that this little instrument was not a kitschy piece of junk. And no craftsman’s signature or corporate logo meant it probably wasn’t a knockoff or a collectible. Something traded in a black market had a history. Maybe there was something about its components or its previous owner that had set it apart, but for the life of him he couldn’t see anything inherently dangerous about the thing itself.

He plucked the strings again, with a little more weight this time, and they rang out sweetly. The sound tugged at his heart, and he frowned. He knew how instruments worked in theory. Had even picked up an electric guitar at Pete’s urging the last time they’d visited Earth. Unfortunately most of the stuff he’d actually be interested in playing wasn’t built to accommodate people of his proportions, so it inevitably was too uncomfortable or difficult to sustain. But this…

Rocket sat cross-legged on his cot and pulled the bowl into his lap, pressing the strings and strumming experimentally, feeling and sounding out the configurations necessary for some basic chords. He thought the strings were warming to his touch and stopped, holding his palm flat against them. They were warm—but the heat was evenly spread across the length of the strings, and not just where he had made contact. More weirdness. He should take it apart. Run some tests, make some subtle inquiries around Aethra and figure out just what this thing was before he got too attached. 

His comm flashed again and he groaned, putting the instrument down on his pillow and going to the workbench.

“Keep your pants on, Quill,” he muttered, opening the chatlog. Quill’s messages were waiting, words casting soft red light across the room.

_Sure they do, Rock You know we all hear you hummin’ when you fly, right?  
Lift anything good from the market?_

Rocket grinned.

_steal from victims of such a tragedy? i could never_

He’d started to invite Pete to see the highlights of his hauls a while back, letting him in on an old tradition of his and Groot’s, but he hadn’t finished sorting yet. And something special like the instrument—if it turned out not to be too hot of an item—deserved more…presentation. Quill was a sucker for that kind of thing. It’d be worth a little work to see that idiot’s face light up.

The intership comm system came to life with a squeal, and his ears flattened. Great. Something else on this patchwork bucket for him to fix.

“Aethran delegation preparing to receive us at their central government building.” Gamora’s voice crackled over the speakers. She sounded bored. “Let’s get this over with. And this time no faking a Galactus attack as a way out of awkward conversation. That’s an eleven. A good excuse comes in at about a six. You have five minutes to finish getting ready.”

Rocket sucked his teeth and scrabbled over to where his jumpsuit lay in a blue pile and tugged it on. Zipper stuck a little and it was tighter than he remembered, but it’d be fine. He stowed a knife, a couple grenades, a collapsible blaster, and some spare scrap in its pockets, and cinched a silver utility belt around his waist. Fine. Not like anyone at the dinner would be ogling him anyway, what with Pete and the others. 

Someone pounded on his door.

“Done curling your whiskers? Let’s go, short stuff!” Quill, of course.

“Hey, hey,” Rocket unlocked it and grinned up as the metal paneling slid aside to show his friend leaning on the opposite wall, arms crossed and smiling. “There’s no rushing perfection.”

“Mm, very true.” The human arched his brows, scanning him up and down. “A classic ensemble, I see.”

“Oh, you like?” Rocket held his arms up obligingly and half-turned. “Didn’t want to make you all feel underdressed.”

“No, it’s very tasteful.” Pete grinned and gestured. “The neckfur is a little risque, but you pull it off.”

“Sex sells—isn’t that what they say on Earth?” He lifted his chin and scratched under his jaw casually, but his pulse was rapid. “Nice legs.”

“They’re called hotpants,” said Quill proudly, whipping his favorite coat behind him to fully expose the horrible glory of his tight leather pants.

Da’st, his thighs were as thick as Rocket’s entire body.

“Are they called ‘hotpants’ because they deserve to be burned along with the moron wearing them?” Rocket slapped his door’s access panel and locked it.

“Ugh, maybe.” Peter dropped the confident stance and pulled at the waistband. “My balls are suffocating. It’s actually kind of painful.”

“Then why’re ya wearin’ them, idiot?” he laughed, and they headed down the corridor together.

“C’mon dude, it’s like, objectively hilarious.”

“I don’t see it.” He did, however, see how the fabric stretched taut around Quill’s calves.

Peter shrugged. “Okay, so maybe they were my last clean pair of pants.”

“So stop shitting your pants or borrow some of Drax’s.”

“Ha ha, that was o—twice, okay, it’s not a thing. And I probably couldn’t fit into Drax’s pants even when he was a kid. The guy is a mountain.” Pete turned and held his hands about a foot on either side of his hips, and shook his head. “Not happening. And Gamora’s are too small. Plus she said she’d flay me if I kept stealing her clothes, so…”

“So go naked. Say it’s an Earth custom. That’d be hilarious.” He elbowed Pete’s knee, and grinned as the human threw back his head and laughed. That boy had the stupidest face.

Leafy vines reached out of the porthole to their right, and Groot ducked through the low opening, falling into step behind them. He’d kept the blooms he’d grown earlier, and had added others as well, discretely blooming at his joints and in a cascade down his chest. His foliage seemed darker as well—a more somber shade of green than usual.

“I am Groot?”

“Yeah, we’re laughing about the pants.” Rocket shot a smirk back to his old friend, and felt a thin tendril sling over his shoulder companionably. It had taken a long time for him to get used to the Floras colossus’ physical displays of affection, but now it was something he appreciated, hell, even took comfort in. He huffed at a new leaf sprouting from the vine by his neck, and Groot creaked in a way that sounded amused.

“Like the flowers, big guy. You’re lookin’ good.” Quill held up his hand, and Groot touched it with his own in a deliberately gentle version of a high-five. The first time they’d tried that, Groot had sent him flying. Landed in some kind of thorny bush, if Rocket remembered right. Pete’s coat swished, and his eyes dropped. Nice.

“I am Groot.” The big tree had caught him ogling, and his eyes danced wickedly. Rocket winced, mentally taking back every nice thing he’d ever thought about Groot. Okay, maybe half of it. Fine. None of it. But he was annoyed and Pete was looking at him expectantly. Poker face.

“He says your butt is more visible than usual.” Not untrue, and the best lies had some truth to them. 

“Thank you.” Pete inclined his head graciously back to Groot, then laughed and crossed his arms cockily. “Although it’s you guys who should probably be thanking me.”

Groot frowned down at Rocket. “I am Groot.”

Rocket’s collar felt tight. “So I’m not a perfect translator. Gimme a break, bud. Is it something he really needs to know?”

“I am Groot,” sighed the tree, relenting, but he withdrew his vine from Rocket’s shoulder. Whatever. Groot just didn’t get it. Upfront was fine for random encounters and occasional acquaintances, but for someone you lived and worked with, who you couldn’t just cut off if things got awkward, it wasn’t an option. And he and Pete had a good thing. You don’t jeopardize a friendship like that for a long-shot. Even if he did have a great ass.

“Thank you.” He kept his head up, but his good mood had evaporated.

“Anybody know what kind of food these guys eat?”

Rocket grunted noncommittally, and Groot heaved his shoulders. 

“Whatever they eat has to taste better than Gamora’s protein bars,” said Drax as he fell in behind them. 

“I know, right?” exclaimed Quill, walking backwards with his arms spread. “Finally someone agrees with me!”

“We’ve been over this. Literally everyone except Gamora agrees with you on this one, Star-nerd,” drawled Rocket.

“They aren’t that bad!” Gamora’s defensive voice rang out from the port ahead of them, and the deadliest woman in the galaxy stepped out, arms crossed. She’d found new armor somewhere—panels of an ultra-dark metallic green material wrapped around her bust and shielded her shoulders, and her foot tapped irritably in a matte white boot. 

“Tights?” asked Rocket, raising his brow. “Kind of old-fashioned.” Also evidently glittery. It looked good, sure, but not especially protective. She’d enhanced the yellow markings around her eyes with some kind of gold dust as well, and lined her lips with a deep shimmering green. It may have been the lighting, but it looked like she was blushing.

“Classic,” corrected Quill. “Hot, but in like a vintage way. What gives, Gam? Not complaining, but it’s not your usual style.”

“Nothing!” She was definitely blushing, hands flitting uncomfortably around her midriff, abs covered in a sheer black fabric. “Nothing is giving. I just…felt like trying something new.”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket smirked. “Groot thinks we might not be the only guests at this dinner.”

Gamora bristled, eyes flashing. She pointed a white-gloved finger at Groot. “That is enough thinking from you. I dress for no one but myself. A-and if there happen to be any Thors there—“

Rocket cackled and Quill let out a whoop. She was definitely blushing.

“If there are Thors at the dinner, do you think Angela will be among them?” asked Drax, behind the times as usual. He’d covered the regenerative patch with a wicked-looking shoulder greave. Still no shirt, but his best knives were belted at his waist.

“Signs point to yes!” Pete sidled up to Gamora and slung his arm around her shoulder. “It’s about freaking time, Gams. I’m so proud of you.”

She wrinkled her nose and picked his arm off her shoulder. “Um. Thanks. I guess.”

“Wait, you haven’t doinked yet?” Rocket cocked his head. “What have you two been doing in your room when she visits, then?”

She flushed, face and neck turning a deep shade of pine. “Sparring. And…sometimes…snuggles.”

“Aww,” cooed Rocket, clasping his claws together. “Ain’t you gals sweet?”

“Shut up, rat,” she said without much heat. Her shoulders slumped and a slight smile crooked her lips. “We need to get going.”

Sheesh. If she got this sappy just thinking about the redhead, who knows how she’d be acting once they were doing it. Rocket gagged, following the humanoids down the corridor out to the garage. The ramp slid out, a slight hiss as gasses equalized, and the hold was filled with a rich orchid color as the Aethran evening flooded in. 

The food had better be good.


	3. The Prognite Wedding Special

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another tedious banquet to endure, plus sexualized food imagery, bad flirting, and a little plot teasing. Also if anyone happens to be emetophobic, there is content you may wish to avoid after Rocket mentions Goolri Seven.

Rocket sniffed the gentle breeze and grunted approvingly at the scents of roasted meat and bread it carried. A phalanx of Aethrans in ceremonial blue armor were lined up to receive them, and they marched out with appropriate decorum. Plus or minus a few stifled snickers. The helmets were not flattering, but it’s hard to navigate the dos and don’ts of head fashion when you have long, delicate eyestalks.

They’d been cleared to land on the lawn of the planetary capitol building, which sat upon a blue-grassed hill. Slender trees with creamy puffs waving from their crowns studded the hillside, and in the valley below them, the sea-side capitol city twinkled with bronze and silver light. Jade-sailed skiffs dotted the rich viridian ocean that stretched out to the clear horizon. Relatively underdeveloped, or maybe artificially preserved? Or just a product of a society big on pushing problems out of sight and out of mind, even off-planet if necessary? Industry boom planets usually destroyed their environments in their pursuit of wealth and galactic acceptance. Given the brunt of the natural resource exploitation had been focused on the moon, though, maybe Aethra itself had been spared. For now, at least. 

They were directed across the grounds and up a broad set of steps that looked like they’d been hewn from the moon’s canyon stone. Large statues of Aethrans with presumably a great deal of cultural and historical import posed dramatically across the front face of the building. Big flarkging deal. As Guardians they’d been through this whole song and dance hundreds of times. The only things that changed were the shapes of the locals and the contents of the plates. Claws crossed that it was edible this time.

A thankfully brief corridor with polished stone floor, off of which their boots, claws, and root-feet respectively squealed, scratched, and scuffed. A wide wooden door was drawn back, and the Guardians heaved a collective sigh of relief at the delectable bouquet of smells that billowed out from the vast hall beyond. Luminous glassy orbs floated above a crowded table, Aethran delegates draped in the glory of rich fabrics, medals in various metals, and eyestalk ornamentation, quieted their chatter and stood in honor of the people who’d saved them the embarrassment of accountability. A few humanoids were seated at one end of the broad table, and after a moment’s confusion, they stood as well. Rocket recognized a couple, especially the woman towards the middle with the winged helm, whose curly red hair matched her glowing eyes. She was grinning like a Gabrokian panther over at them.

He glanced to Gamora, who was fighting a losing battle with a smile, and rolled his eyes. They were guided to their seats, opposite the Asgardians. At the narrow end of the table sat what were, judging by the amount of decoration, the most important of the Aethrans. Four of them. The thin slashes of their mouths sat high and their chins hung low, and their pupils were wide with signs of chronic Rolov spice use. They’d sat Gamora at their elbow, then, surprisingly, Drax, letting Peter, Rocket, and Groot trailing down the line of respectability. He’d be offended if he hadn’t expected it. Usually Pete ranked above Drax, though. 

Pete and Rocket made faces at each other as they pulled their chairs in. Completely flat silver plates sat in front of them, various spiny utensils arrayed aside. Graceful pewter flutes were filled with a clear pink liquid by circling serving staff, and Rocket downed his quickly.

Bubbly. Kind of a subdued, nutty flavor. Not nearly alcoholic enough. He waved down another server and held his glass out for a refill.

“Missed me the first time, pal.”

Pete threw his own drink back, smirking, and pointed to the emptied flute. “Me too, please.”

“Ooh, ‘please’, aren’t we well-mannered?” Rocket mocked, eyeing the human across the stream of pink wine. “Goodness knows how you got passed over for the second seat.”

Quill shrugged, toying with a corkscrew-tipped utensil. “Guess it’s just my burden to be consigned to the common rabble.”

Rocket snorted. “Big word for you, ‘consigned’. Sure you know what it means?”

Quill gave him a shit-eating grin, making eye-contact with a suddenness that thrilled him. “You’re awfully concerned with what comes out of my mouth tonight, Rock.”

“It’s just so hard on me, watching you embarrass yourself all the time,” he replied in what he hoped was an off-handed tone. Judging by the glimmer of victory in those baby blues, he wasn’t entirely successful. 

“Mm, maybe you should be more interested in what’s going in it.” Quill raised his eyebrows, then reconsidered, frowning. “In—in my mouth. In what’s going…in my mouth. In case that wasn’t clear.”

Rocket laughed, shaking his head and trying not to look at Pete’s lips. “Wow. Classy and well-spoken. How could anyone resist your charm?”

“None can,” Pete answered, just a slight blush ruining his straight face. “It’s a burden.”

Something was intriguing about that expression, but before he had time to decipher it, a piercing chime rang out from the head of the table, and one of the Aethrans stood. Peter turned his head to at least pretend to pay attention, but as Rocket would have to stand up on the table itself in order to see, he didn’t bother, instead choosing to stare down into the mirror of his plate. 

The bifurcated tonality of Aethran speech gave the Universal translator a little difficulty, so the droning speech only came through in patches. Something about proud people, something about protecting even the lowliest of Aethran civilians, something about great honor and eternal gratitude, no money for a job well done yada yada yada. Rocket made a face at his reflection, admiring how clearly his markings were replicated. Good quality metal. Or at least a good buff job. A little too conspicuous to make off with, but maybe there’d be an opportunity after dinner.

He heard “Guardians of the Galaxy” and nodded at the rest of the table as they cheered dutifully. The Asgardians clapped as well. The man opposite him, wearing a golden breastplate as easily as if it were one of Quill’s I-haven’t-done-laundry-in-six-cycles tank-tops, and with a nut-brown mop of hair that looked like a Prooktonian squirrel had been nesting in it, looked critically across the table at him. Rocket winked at him and gave him the finger. Angela was seated to the man’s left, and laughed heartily at his confusion, leaning over and whispering to him. Two reddish spots bloomed high in his cheeks, but to his credit he smiled. 

Rocket drank again, and when he put the glass down, serving staff were carrying steaming platters and a few tureens around the table, offering their contents to guests. He accepted everything proffered to him, and soon his silver plate had been filled with juicy slices of meat, fragrant slivers of vegetables swimming in sauces, cold whole eggs the size of his claw that glittered like jewels, and some gelatinous blobs that seemed to continuously shift color. His stomach gurgled, and he picked up an egg. 

“I am Groot,” admonished Groot in a quiet rumble, snapping a thin vine across Rocket’s knuckles and making him drop the egg. The sapphire shell broke upon landing, and a pale blue yolk oozed out onto the roast.

“A few minutes ain’t gonna make a difference, Groot!” he hissed, wringing the sting out of his paw. 

The big tree frowned, and he relented, folding his arms and staring petulantly down at his plate until the last speech had finished and everyone else took up their utensils. 

“May I?” he asked Groot sarcastically, but he’d already started eating, grasping the tiny forks in his giant fingers.

He shook his head and tucked in, using the utensils to scoop up anything wet, and tearing into the rest with his claws. Little tastes at first, just to get his bearings, and then shoveling in anything he liked. The meat was good, and the eggs, if a little weird. The gray vegetables had a pleasant texture, and so did the orange ones, but the sickly yellow ones had to be isolated. Tasted like flark. There were some plump, waxy pods filled with a sweet tartness and hard rolls that were studded with seeds. He’d filled up in no time, and focused on coaxing a good buzz out of the weak alcohol.

Pete snickered at his side, picking at the vegetable mix.

“What?”

“You gonna walk back to the ship, or are we gonna have to roll you back?”

Rocket bristled, swiping his paws over the front of his armor, brushing away the debris from his meal. “Try it and I hamstring you.”

“No no, I think a Round Rocket would really work for us,” Quill eyed him over his glass as he took a sip. “You’d be so cute. We could make you mascot. Start merchandising.”

“I’m not cute!” he snapped, face heating. “Merch isn’t a bad idea, though, if you actually—”

Quill flapped a hand. “Too much work. Sorry. You’re not round. I’m just kinda jealous that you’re able to eat anywhere we go.”

Rocket watched him push around the mountain on his plate with the corkscrew piece. “It’s food. It’s supposed to be eaten. You do stupid stuff all the time—why is this different?”

“Dude, what if I turn out to be allergic to something?” Pete’s eyes widened. “What if something that’s fine for the locals ends up being poisonous to us?”

Rocket shrugged. “Most of the places we go have at least made contact with the rest of the galaxy. For you to get put on the proverbial map, you gotta have exposure. Involves a lot of paperwork and handshaking and that kind of glark. Includes having your cuisine analyzed for major elements that are hazardous to common species.”

“Well, neither of us are especially common out here.” Pete wrinkled his nose down at his plate. “I don’t trust it.”

Rocket’s nose twitched, and he picked up one of the pods. Quill had a sweet-tooth if he’d ever seen one, so this would be a safe bet. “Do you trust me?”

Quill laughed, twisting in his seat. “Never.”

Rocket grinned and held up the sweet pod. “Try this anyway, trug.”

Quill rolled his eyes and opened his mouth. Rocket stared for a second before stretching over and popping the pod in, trying not to focus on the warmth of his breath or the softness of the lower lip that grazed his thumb as he pulled back. Pete seemed oblivious, chewing thickly, but a slow smile spread over his face. Rocket tore his gaze away and ran his hand casually across his plate, smearing the sauces and licking his fingers clean, thumb last.

Pete swallowed audibly and nodded. “Okay. That was good.”

“And you’re not dead!” grinned Rocket, saluting the man with his glass and emptying it.

“And I’m not dead!” Pete stuffed another pod in his mouth, and followed it up with a third, puffing his cheeks out. “Win-win.”

“Keep talkin’ with your mouth full, and they’ll move you to the other end of the table.” Rocket waved down another server and held out his tragically empty flute. He took a gulp and held it in his mouth for a while, letting the carbonation prick against his hard palate.

“Admit it: you’d miss me.” Pete winked, a tidbit of meat dangling at the tip of a corkscrew utensil. He took a smug bite, and immediately grimaced, features screwing up into each other. 

Rocket swallowed the wine and sighed, reaching over with his scoopiest utensil and scooping the remaining offending meat off of Pete’s plate and dumping it on his own. 

“I live with you, moron,” he drawled as Quill attempted to subtly spit it out into the small square of cloth that they’d each been provided as napkins. The partially masticated blob fell into Quill’s lap, and he frantically flicked a hand at it. Naturally the stuff stuck to his hand and wouldn’t come off, and he forgot about the napkin square and wiped his hand on the bottom of the table. Classic Starlord. 

Rocket waited until Quill had relaxed his expression of anxious consternation and made sheepish eye contact. He raised his brows pointedly. “It would be a vacation.”

Pete snorted, but looked down at his plate instead of smiling. His thumb twitched. Rocket frowned and opened his mouth, but an insistent call from the other side of the table cut him off.

“Rocket Raccoon!” Angela grinned over, a spoonful of purple goo trembling in her steady hand. “I would speak with you later, provided that you have a moment to spare.”

“For you I got several,” he replied, smiling. Always a good fight impending whenever she showed up. “What’s up with the, uh, escort?”

Her smile dimmed, but she played it off with a shrug. “Asgardian business. Still getting used to…being part of a team, so to speak.”

He cocked his head. “You help us out all the time. Is it that different?”

The corners of her plump lips turned down, and although it was hard to tell with the glowing, Rocket could discern that her gaze had flicked away, towards her companion. He was watching her intently, the beginning crinkles of a frown between his thin brows. 

“Of course it’s different, working with different people,” she said carefully. “But it’s been difficult becoming accustomed to Asgardian politics. Learning the history outside of Heven’s doctrines.”

“Difficult is one word,” Rocket was watching the others, now, under the pretext of scanning the dishes lain across the table. There was a tenseness he hadn’t noticed before—nervousness in the movements of their lips and eyes that he didn’t like. About the conversation, or their presence here? “Boring is another. History is boring.”

She smiled, turning her head to the side and gazing up the table towards Gamora. “Things may have multiple qualities. It may not be as bracing to hear about past battles as it is to fight them, but it is helping me to orient myself within this new galaxy.”

“Don’t put too much stock in what you hear,” said Rocket propped his elbow up on the table and rested his chin on his palm. “Heven didn’t invent historical revisionism, and every empire will have you believing something different.”

She snorted. “Of course. But it is a good place to start. And concerning events that lie in distant past, the actual truth may not be so important as the stories which have outlived it and been perpetuated.”

“That what brought you out to this sector same time as us?” he asked, eyes narrowing. “Stories?”

She opened her mouth to respond, but her neighbor cut her off, gesturing aggressively with a gauntleted hand. “We were in the area and intercepted a distress call from the moon. By the time we arrived, your…team…had already handled the business.”

Rocket grinned. “Sounds like you lot are mooching off our thank-you dinner, then. Still, you’re a long way from Asgard. What gives?”

The man frowned and pointed, but Angela grabbed his hand and pushed it down to the table, her knuckles turning white. He grimaced in pain.

“On Earth they say it is not polite to point, Greyval,” she said lightly, waiting for him to nod before releasing him.

“That’s probably why he’s sitting third spot down,” Quill chimed in helpfully.

Greyval scowled, rubbing his hand. “Thank you, Angela. I will… keep that in mind.”

“To answer your question, Rocket, it has been far too long since I have spoken with you all,” continued Angela, tone significantly warmer. “If you don’t need to depart immediately after this dinner, I would love to have some time to reconnect—”

“We’d love that,” said Pete with a wide smile. “Gamora especially.”

Angela nodded, casting another grin up the table. “Would that she were less charming. I could be sitting across from her tonight.”

“I am Groot!” protested Groot, wounded.

She laughed. “Sorry—you are indeed a friend, Groot. I—”

“Just wanted someone to play footsie with,” Rocket finished, patting his friend’s arm to console him. 

Angela smirked. “To start, perhaps. But I do have much to talk with you all about. Stories that aren’t… appropriate for this hall.”

Rocket smelled a job offer. He and Pete exchanged glances, and he nodded. “We’ll need to restock the ship before we leave again—should be plenty of time to catch up.”

She nodded back and turned her attention to her flute, drinking deeply and making a face.

Quill laughed. “Wine here is pretty weak. We should really make the rounds in the city. See what else the Aethrans have to offer.”

Rocket slammed his fist down. “Yes! I need a d’ast drink.” The pain meds were wearing off, and this pink stuff wasn’t doing a flarkging thing. 

The servers came around with more food—silver tureens with tiny bowls. They ladled a thin, creamy broth studded with small brown rounds. Rocket picked one out of his bowl and inspected it. Some kind of fried beetle. He threw it in his mouth and chewed meditatively. Sweet. Sort of cheesy. The broth, when he tried it, wasn’t bad either. Similar flavor to the wine, but warm and rich. He finished his quickly, and took Groot’s too when the big tree slid his bowl over. 

“Is it good?” asked Pete, stirring his broth with a flattened spoon.

“Yup,” said Rocket with a mouthful of insects. “You like bugs, right?”

Pete shrugged, biting tentatively into a smaller beetle. A thin stream of broth ran down his lips and stubbled chin, and Rocket choked, hacking fragments of shell up over his place setting. Quill pounded his back and Groot sent a concerned tendril over his shoulders.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!” he gasped, eyes and face stinging. He looked up and saw that every face in the hall was turned towards him. His ears flicked back and he gave a sheepish smile. “I’m good. Some, ah, bug soup went…down the wrong way. Delicious, though!”

Ugh. Conversation slowly resumed, and he rolled his eyes. The worst. 

“Bad news, buddy,” murmured Quill in his ear, warm breath tickling his whiskers and heating his neck deliciously. His voice was low and had a roughness that was absent at his normal speaking volume. Rocket's tight armor got tighter. “Looks like I’ll be sitting next to Groot next time around.”

He shivered involuntarily, words flying out of his head. “Krutacking flaknard, don’t do that to me.” 

Quill laughed, leaning back. “Do what, Rock? You’re the one who had to inhale his dessert.”

Rocket groaned, trying to adjust himself surreptitiously. “Tell me that was the last course and we can go get blind and stinking drunk now.”

Pete shrugged, looking casually around the room. “We can always pull the Prognite Wedding Special. You want to get back to the ship, or find somewhere in town, or what?”

“I don’t care.” Rocket’s nose twitched. “Wait, we’re out of booze on the ship.”

“Mm. Into town, then.”

“Gotta be into town. Who’s the bride?”

“Dude!” Quill laughed again. “It’s totally gotta be you.”

“What? Why?” he demanded.

“Uh, because you got us into this mess? Plus I can’t lean on you convincingly. You’re too short.”

“I am not!” he bristled. “We did it on Goolri Seven just fine, remember?”

Pete’s eyebrows flew up and his voice rose an octave in incredulity. “I had a cramp in my back for three standards after that! No. You’re the bride, or we’re not going.”

Rocket huffed. “Fine.” 

He cleared his throat and coughed lightly a couple times, humming a little to warm his voice. Then he started swaying in his seat, clutching his gut and moaning lowly. He put his ears back and grimaced, baring his teeth.

Quill rolled his eyes. “Speed it up, prima donna.”

He paused, glaring at his friend from the corner of one eye. “You want fast, you be the bride, ya trug.” 

Pete grinned. “By all means, continue then.”

He ramped up the moaning, started doubling up as if wracked with cramping, until he could see faces turned towards him again. Then he started retching.

“Oh no, Rocket!” exclaimed Pete, the picture of wide-eyed sincerity. “Are you feeling okay?”

“It’s nothing, Quill, I—” Rocket dry heaved loudly and scattered ‘oh’s rose up around the table.

Pete pushed his chair back with a squeal and turned to the head of the table. “I’m so sorry, your majesties, my friend is sick. We—”

Rocket retched again, hauling up a nasty, phlegmatic sound from the base of his stomach, eliciting scattered cries of alarm from around the room. He fought the urge to grin. Suddenly Pete was looming over him, large hands slipping behind his back and beneath his knees, and he was hoisted up into the air as though he weighed nothing at all. His stomach dropped and he stiffened, but continued his pantomime, rolling around a little in Pete’s arms. He could feel the warmth of Pete’s chest through his shirt and smell him too, but he focused on acting ill.

“Is that the Prognite—” Drax was shushed by Gamora, who looked envious when Rocket caught a glimpse of her face. Eh, she could have done it herself if she was bored. If Drax didn’t pick up on it, Pete or Rocket would’ve taken the second part quickly enough. 

Quill demurred to the few concerned Aethrans who got up to follow, saying Rocket just needed some air and that they would be fine. He didn’t know if the man was conscious of it or not, but each time he did, his arms tightened a little around Rocket, almost possessively. Rocket lolled his tongue and rolled his eyes up, and fought a grin at the sight of Quill’s throat and the underside of his stubbled chin above him. The man’s Adam’s apple bobbed slightly, and his voice buzzed up warmly from his chest as he spoke, and at that moment Rocket didn’t mind being held. Pete’s hand at his flank twitched. No, not a twitch—his thumb moved in a gentle arc, passing absently through the fur along the swell of his muscle. His nerves thrilled, but he felt frozen, unwilling or unable to move. 

They passed into the corridor, Pete’s boots ringing off the stone. It was dark around them and warm, the scent of the dinner following them from behind and mingling with the softly floral scent of the evening drifting in ahead. Rocket couldn’t remember there being any guards posted outside, but their escort hadn’t stayed in the banquet hall with them. Better keep up the ruse until they were free and clear. 

He kept up the groaning and threw in a few hacking coughs. Pete snorted, and Rocket could tell he was smiling by the way his cheeks bunched up above him.

“Don’t overdo it, Rock,” he murmured. 

“Oh, my poor flarkging gut!” moaned Rocket tragically. “I’ll never eat again!”

Pete spluttered, reddening from stifled laughter. “Stop, dude, we’re almost out.”

“I was so young… and beautiful,” Rocket sobbed, grasping the front of Quill’s shirt. “When they sing songs of me, make sure they remember…that I was the best.”

“The best at what?” scoffed Quill.

“Everything,” he gasped, and flopped back in Pete’s arms, letting his limbs dangle in the empty air.

Quill’s laugh rumbled up from his chest. They were bathed in purple light as Pete stepped out down the steps of the capitol building. The sweet smell of grass rose up around them, and Rocket looked up to the wide lavender sky. Huge, fluffy clouds dominated the view, but in the gaps between them, silver pinpricks peeped through. 

“We’re out now, Quill,” he said, suddenly feeling warm and self-conscious. “You can put me down.”

“Oh right—sorry.” Pete bent slightly and dropped him without ceremony, and Rocket yelped, landing on his ass.

“You trug!” Rocket laughed, punching Quill’s leg. He danced away, grinning, his jacket flying out behind him, and they ran together through the blue grass and the growing dusk towards the twinkling city below.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I start my work week tomorrow, so this may be the last update for a while! Hope you're enjoying it. :)


	4. Couldn't Get it Right

They found a cramped club downtown with a good crowd, where gusts of sweat- and booze-scented humidity flew out onto the street each time the door opened, and the crush of bodies was noisy and diverse enough that people didn’t stare too much at a humanoid and a raccoon. The bar was full up but they staged a heated argument that scared a few patrons off their stools pretty quickly. They clambered up next to each other, ordered at random from the posted menu, and clinked glasses. Rocket’s drink was neon green and smoking, neither of which were qualities he usually looked for in his alcohol, but when he knocked it back it hit like a hammer so he didn’t hold the appearance against it.

He coughed at the burn in the back of his throat and grinned over to Quill. “Not bad. How’s yours?”

“Better than that pink glarkg,” said Quill, hefting his tall glass of something violently red and frothy. “Think the dinner’s over yet?”

“Nah,” smirked Rocket. “I bet they’re doing more speeches when everyone’s too stuffed to escape.”

“Everyone except us!” Quill winked at him and took another drink. 

“Okay, okay, so what are the odds they find us?” Rocket swiveled his stool, scanning the milling bodies around them, at the people drinking, dancing, hollering conversations back and forth. 

“Depends.” Pete mirrored him—then, liking the smoothness of the seat’s rotation, did a couple full turns. “You got your comm? Gonna hail ‘em?”

Rocket snorted. “Nah. It’s no fun if they don’t have to poke around for a bit.”

“Then I say it’ll take ‘em at least a few hours. Outside of that, we may have to be responsible for getting ourselves back to the ship.”

Rocket made a face. “Now that’s no fun. Things get that dire, I’ll use the comm.”

His ribs ached a little in this position, so he scooted his stool closer to the bar for more back support and took another couple gulps. Mmph. This stuff worked quick. He was already warm and acutely aware of his pulse. It throbbed dully at the back of his head, and he scratched at the spot. Pretty swollen, but with the fur at least it wouldn’t look ridiculous. 

“You okay?” Pete had a little froth on his upper lip and his face was beginning to redden. 

“Didn’t I tell you before?” Rocket crossed his arms behind his head nonchalantly. “I’m the best.”

Pete snorted, reaching over. “What’s wrong with your head?”

Rocket swatted at his hand, swiveling square to him. “Nothing. Just a scratch earlier. Keep your mitts to yourself.”

Quill’s eyes were wide and plaintive. 

“Hey, no—that doesn’t work on me!” he scowled, pointing firmly as Quill stuck his lower lip out in an exaggerated pout. “Stop it.”

Somehow Quill’s eyes got even bigger and seemed to start tearing up. The ridiculous froth mustache quivered piteously. 

“Ugh. Fine. But it’s really nothing.” Rocket rolled his eyes and swiveled so Pete didn’t see him smile.

The gentle touch, despite being expected, was startling, and Rocket’s heart hammered as Pete’s fingers parted the fur at the back of his skull and quested around the sore site. He tried not to jump at the skin to skin contact when Quill’s fingertips, cold from his drink glass, brushed his scalp, but the shock faded quickly. There was something almost shy about the contact, something soft that made him close his eyes and swallow against a growing ache in his throat.

“Jeez, that looks like it hurt,” murmured Quill with genuine sympathy.

“’S nothing. Head stuff always bleeds a lot. It’ll be like nothing happened in a few days.” Rocket felt Quill’s hand drift down into the thicker fur at the back of his neck, and he shivered.

Quill pulled away instantly. “Sorry, I didn’t—”

“No, you’re good. Just…cold.” Rocket shook himself briskly and took a drink and then another, staring fixedly at the bottles and carafes gleaming in the bar display. The club lights illuminated the glass, flushing clear containers pink and orange in turn, turning the liquids within blue, green, violet. Prismatic spots danced across the pale wood of the counter.

Quill sighed, and Rocket heard him swallow, then the clink of his glass against the bar top. Aethran music was blasting—tinny and discordant, a meandering beat that sounded about as drunk as he wanted to be. He was making progress, though, feeling warm from head to tail, with a delicious tingling working its way up the tips of his fingers and toes. His shoulders relaxed.

“Hey listen,” Quill leaned to him, voice low and serious. “We should dance to this.”

Rocket spluttered. “Dude, it’s garbage! It’d be impossible.”

“I know—that’s why it’d be hilarious.” His smile was wide and boyish, and his disheveled blond hair was emblazoned by the lights overhead, blooming a rich blue-green. He spread his hands wide, inviting. 

“It’s got no bass,” protested Rocket half-heartedly, already edging off his stool.

Quill arched an eyebrow. “A challenge worthy of two Guardians of the Galaxy.”

Rocket laughed, draining his glass and hopping down. “Fine, trug, let’s ruin our reputation.”

Quill gave him a thumbs-up and finished his own drink as well, wiping his mouth on the back of his hand and leading the way into the crowd. Rocket followed in his wake, keeping an eye on the other dancers. Aethrans seemed to run shorter than most humanoids, but they were still a good deal taller than him, and he wasn’t wearing boots. Getting a paw stomped on by some drunken Aethran teen would hurt like a trug. 

“This was a stupid idea,” he yelled over the terrible music as Quill turned to him, grinning.

“So? All my ideas are stupid. Doesn’t mean they’re not great!” Quill started bouncing on the balls of his feet, bending his knees and shaking his shoulders from side to side.

“You look like a da’st idiot,” he smirked, starting to pick up on something workable in the downbeats and tapping his feet.

“Like a sexy da’st idiot,” Pete winked, and held out a hand. “C’mon, Rock.”

“Ugh. Why do I let you talk me into this stuff?” Rocket took it, hoping his own hand was dry, and Quill spun him. The room whirled and his drunkenness gave it an extra swing, dizzyingly fast and exhilarating. He laughed, staggering out of the spin and bouncing off Quill who was also wheezing helplessly.

“Alright, alright, let me do you.” Rocket held both hands out and Quill gave him his arm obligingly. He leveraged his weight and pivoted sharply, pulling Quill around and around in a tight circle and letting him go once he’d built up enough momentum. Pete went sprawling, head over heels, and collided with a couple Aethrans who glared at him with all four pairs of eyes, and backed up.

“You giant flaknard,” gasped Quill, breathless, and lunged for Rocket’s arm. 

Sniggering, he danced out of the way, slipping a little on someone’s spilled drink. “Gotta be faster, Quill!”

“Oh what, like this?” Pete feinted to the left and then lurched clumsily to the right, lunging for Rocket’s jumpsuit. The feint was so pitiful that Rocket doubled over laughing and let him grab hold, and was promptly yanked down to the floor beside him.

“Ew, gross,” he complained. “My fur’s gonna get all sticky.”

“Don’t be a baby,” Quill smiled and closed his eyes, content now that he’d gotten Rocket back. “We’ll shower when we get back.”

Rocket snickered. “You should be so lucky.” 

Quill flushed, but didn’t run with it, and for a moment Rocket wondered if he’d meant it. But that was stupid. And it’s not like there’d be room enough in that little compartment anyway. Not that he’d thought about it much before.

He groaned, hauling himself up and stretching his back. “Listen, if you really want to dance to this glarkg, I need to obliterate all traces of dignity I have left. Wanna get more booze?”

“Dignity?” snorted Pete.

“Watch it, Star-butt.” 

He marched back to the bar and balanced between two occupied stools to order. Different drinks than last time. One came in a wide-bowled glass with layers of orange, red, and yellow liquors that fizzed furiously but didn’t blend, and the other was a thin tower of pale purple liquid that slid thickly rather than sloshed when he picked it up. Tart and much too sweet, almost honeyed, but he was able to lick it all up with his narrow tongue. He sipped the other one, and it bubbled ferociously against his throat as he swallowed. Each tiny bubble released a swell of flavor as it burst—sour and yeasty. He was belching after the third swig and gave up, activating his holoaccount and transferring the credits to the bartender.

“Quill!” he hollered, turning back to the floor and scanning the bronze blurs for his pink buddy. “You sulking?” 

He couldn’t hear anything over the music, so he climbed the nearest patron and hopped from shoulder to surprised shoulder until he caught sight of the weathered red jacket. He grinned and jumped to him, losing his balance on the landing and tumbling over Pete’s shoulder, only to be awkwardly caught upside down. Pete flipped him right-side up and they grinned at each other. 

“Fancy meeting you here, you glarkging rockstar. Ready to dance for real?”

Rocket burped in his face and laughed at Pete’s disgusted expression. “Try the—it’s the stripy drink. You should try it. Later, obviously. Dancing now.”

He braced himself, feet planted squarely at the tops of Pete’s thighs. The pleather was so thin he could feel Quill’s body heat under his footpads. Da’st, those thighs were rock hard. Quill shifted his grip steadily, so as not to dislodge him, until they were clasping hands.

“You good?” he asked, cheeks flushed with drink.

“Good?” Rocket snickered and swung in close, getting in the other man’s face. “I’m—”

“I know, I know,” Quill rolled his eyes and gave him a smile that was practically incandescent. “The best.”

“Darn flarking straight.” He felt like his heart was melting in the light of that smile, but when he lifted his gaze, Quill was staring straight at him, those blue eyes sly and shining. “Oh.”

“What?” Quill asked deliberately, smile going from sweet to smug in milliseconds. “Got a problem?”

“Too many to count, pal,” he sighed, determined not to look at Pete’s lips, biting the tip of his tongue to stay focused.

“Listen,” said Pete, slowly swaying them both side to side, pulling their arms back and forth in a hokey, deliberately old-fashioned kind of dance that made Rocket snort. “We’re not, uh, feelings people, right? But, you know…we could try being more open. With each other. Since we’re cool like that. Right?”

“Ugh, it’s like pulling teeth, man,” groaned Rocket. “I’m gonna be sappy for a minute, okay? That’s all you get. You’re great. I’ll always be in your corner and if you need anything, I’m there. But no, I’m not lending you any more credits.”

Pete laughed and set him down, twirling him at a more reasonable speed. “No, it’s just—I mean, thank you and I appreciate it, but I meant…” He stopped himself, running a hand through his hair and looking around, visibly frustrated. He crouched down, leveling his face with Rocket’s.

“Over the past few years…haven’t you felt like we have something? Like we get each other on a level…” Pete’s voice broke and he flushed.

Rocket was extremely aware of the room around them, the booze-scented heat rolling off all the people, the shrieking music setting his teeth on edge, the garish light flaring and pulsing overhead. 

“Yeah?” he asked, voice muffled in his own ears, but Quill was just sitting there, shaking his head.

“Dude, you can’t just start that kind of—” he glowered and punched Pete’s arm with enough force to elicit a glare. “Flarkging say it or don’t. Don’t tease me.”

“Fine, then I won’t!” snapped Pete, rubbing his arm. “I try to be real with you, for once, and you can’t give me five krutacking minutes to get my words right!”

Rocket held his arms out incredulously. “You started talkin’ already! You’re not supposed to just…just open your mouth and let glarkg fall out! You gotta have some level of composition sorted out! You don’t need every flarkging word to be right—”

“Maybe I want every flarkging word to be right, Rock!” Pete bounced on his heels, as if wanting to stand but stopping himself. “I just—I can’t keep using the wrong ones!”

Rocket grabbed at his ears in frustration, drawing himself up. “Then stop and think things through! It ain’t that complicated, Quill!”

Quill laughed in disbelief. “Oh, that is rich coming from you.”

Rocket’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Quill stood, glaring down at him. “What do you think it means, Mr. I-don’t-pay-attention-to-my-rig-charge? What if you’d been fifty-feet up when it cut out? A hundred? What if you’d actually lost consciousness with that thing bearing down on you?”

“I had to get to you!” Rocket said, eyes wide with incredulity. “You were stuck in a hole taking potshots at monsters as big as our ship!”

“My ship,” corrected Quill.

“Don’t be a baby—it’s been our ship for years,” sneered Rocket. “And don’t get too full of yourself, by the way, I came for Drax, too.”

“I’d flarkging hope so, seeing as how he’s our friend and part of the da’st team!” Quill’s nostrils were flaring, which looked kinda funny but Rocket was three systems past being amused and well into flarkging pissed.

“Your friend,” he corrected, ears back. “I don’t need any friends ‘cept Groot. One is enough. I’m at krutacking capacity.” The words were wrong, and they tasted sour coming out, and he regretted them instantly. Too late, though. For a man that didn’t seem to take much seriously, Quill looked like he’d just been slapped.

“You’re a little guy with a little heart, Rock,” said Pete, wounded. “Not just little in size. Little proportionately.”

“Proportions are still sizes, dummy,” said Rocket, but the rage was ebbing. His hands were empty, useless. “It’s relative size.”

“Whatever, stupid.”

“You’re stupid.” Rocket glowered up at him, but saw that Quill’s eyes were reddened, and relented. “You’re not stupid.”

“Thanks, dick.” Pete sniffed, swiping dismissively at his nose and staring out at the crowd that had gathered around them. 

“Now it’s your turn to tell me I’m not stupid,” he prompted, folding his arms.

“I can’t, man.” Pete cracked a tentative smile. “Don’t wanna lie to you.”

“Ha ha, real krutacking funny.” Rocket held his hand up grudgingly. “C’mon. Let’s get out of here.”

Pete took his hand and allowed himself to be led off the dance floor and out of the club. They stood on the street a moment, letting the cool night breeze soothe them, and let go of each other’s hands. They walked the streets in silence for a bit, slipping into what few stores remained open for some restocking. Rocket worked on the parts he’d stashed in his armor pockets, fashioning a communicator for Quill to replace the one he’d lost on the moon. They bantered a little—snarking about some of the people they passed or some of the stranger merchandise they found leftover on store shelves. Nothing real, and even though Rocket had his hands full and his back loaded down with provisions, he felt empty and frustrated.

Every time they skirted close to heavy topics, they seemed to implode. Like two highly reactive elements circling closer and closer, but even the slightest touch blew everything to pieces. They were good at a distance—they functioned at a distance. Why couldn’t he just be happy with that? If that wasn’t enough for him, why did he have to keep tearing down everything they started to build to bridge the gap? How could anything change if he didn’t let it, if he didn’t try?

He sighed, paws scuffing the smooth sidewalk. “I’m sorry for being a trug.”

Pete shrugged, staring up the empty street. “It’s fine.”

“Are you…sorry for also being a trug, maybe?” hinted Rocket, peering up at him sidelong.

Pete snorted. “Da’st, dude, you are the worst.”

“I know.” Rocket shut up, kicking a pebble up the road. It was a wide and empty uphill trek to get back to the ship, and although the booze was wearing off, it left him tired and a little winded. Pete was similarly affected, judging by how heavily he was breathing.

The shushing of blue grass enveloped them as they went off-road. The trees studding the hillside were spindly ghosts in the gloom, their puffball flowers illuminated by some kind of gentle silver bioluminescence. 

“You’re not the worst,” said Quill as they climbed. His face was hidden in shadow, and he didn’t look at Rocket as he spoke, but his voice was low and gravelly with honesty. “What I meant—about the rig? I was hiding in the dark, Rock. Taking shots when I could, surrounded by the stink of blood and sweat and those things.”

Rocket grimaced in sympathy, even though he knew it was an empty gesture. Even if Quill looked at him, he wouldn’t be able to see much. He felt like he should say something dismissive. They’d been in plenty of tight corners before—this was just the most recent entry in a long line of near-deaths. But he’d ruined one honest moment tonight already, so he’d let Quill say his piece. 

“They’d have gotten us eventually, you know,” Pete continued. "A lucky swipe and they’d have me hooked, or shift the canyon wall enough to crush us. But you came. I heard you lead them away. I heard you shooting, them snarling. And then I heard you stop. I thought—I saw you hit the ground, and for a second I thought you weren’t getting back up.”

“I get it,” said Rocket softly. “But I did get back up. It’s done. We’re good. The team is good.”

“Man, it’s not just about the team, okay?” Pete sighed. “You mean a lot to me, you dingus.”

“Yeah, well, you—mean a lot to me, too.” Rocket felt his heart hammering, and looked up. Quill had crested the hill and was limned by the ship lights, smiling down and holding his hand out to help Rocket up. He took it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I didn't originally plan on them arguing, but the more I plan this thing the further it drifts from the happy, flirty, fluffy idea I'd started with. But I'm having fun, and I hope you are too. :)
> 
> (If you can think of a way to smooth the diffusion of the argument in the bar, I'd love some tips. I wanted to leave it kind of uneasy but believable, but I'm not sure how effective dragging it out was.)


	5. A Copper Bird

They were the first ones back. The ship was dark, with only the emergency lights illuminating their way through the cargo hold to the hub. The kitchen was just down the hall, but neither of them felt like putting the provisions away. It wasn’t even late, but the night had been draining, and Rocket could feel the pain from that day’s injuries creeping in alongside the fatigue.

“We should’ve just waited for the others to get this done,” Quill said, dumping his bags on the hub’s display table and plopping heavily in a nearby seat.

Rocket knew it was just bitching for his benefit, knew neither of them would have been comfortable ending their night with that pointless fight. Still, he played along because it was and would always be easier to bitch than to take it back into the mercilessness territory of sincerity.

“Cheer up, Quill, we’ll just make ‘em go back for the rest of it and have ourselves a free day tomorrow.”

Quill sighed and kicked his boots up on the console panels. “A rest day sounds flarking amazing.”

“Yeah, for you.” Rocket threw a packet of dehydrated noodles at Quill without animosity. It smacked him in the chest. “Free day for me means tuning up this bucket and patching whatever holes you managed to bust in our hull with your slipshod piloting.”

Quill grinned, shoving the noodle packet into the bag with the metal refabrication cartridges, fuses, and wiring. Rocket’s fingers twitched, but he refused to take the bait.

“You want a hand with that stuff?” Pete asked when his flagrant organizational violation failed to get a rise out of his friend.

Rocket cocked his head, gathering up the bags of fuel cells, wound spools of leather strips, and copper plugs. Should’ve dropped these in the hold when they walked through earlier. Stupid. Distracted. 

“Why?” he asked. Quill wasn’t usually the type to offer to help with all the menial labor required to keep the ship going. Not just in a technical respect, like with engine maintenance and hull repair, but the flaknard also left his crap everywhere around the ship, refused to do laundry until he’d worn everything he had at least three times, and let his dirty dishes pile up until it was impossible for the others to find clean ones. One of the only things Rocket would admit was nice about living with multiple people was that glarkg like that could be divided up. But Pete was offering to help with a task that had never really fallen within the communal sphere.

The human shrugged. “It just kinda sucks that you’re the only one who knows how to do this stuff. ‘Specially if it means ‘rest days’ aren’t rest days for you.”

“I’m the only one who knows how to do it right, but thanks,” he corrected, suppressing the warm swell of gratitude at the rare consideration. “And if you’re serious…sure. But don’t touch anything unless I tell you different.”

Quill grinned. “Always gracious, Rock. Never change.”

“Stow it,” he told him, smirking. He scanned the bags left on the hub for other gear that belonged in the cargo hold, and snatched the displaced noodles out of Peter’s bag, stuffing them pointedly in one of the grocery bags. “I’ll be back.”

He trudged back, footpads scuffing off the grilled walkways. His arm was sore, and even though the bags weren’t that heavy, they weren’t doing much to relieve the various aches and pains spreading throughout his body. It wasn’t a long walk, but it was sobering. Alone and silent, moving through the familiar dark. What did they have to show for today? Bruises and a new scar for Drax? A near-deserted moon saved from an inevitable consequence of greedy authority exploiting the fallout of an unstable industry? With all the restocking they’d had to do, this mission was going to cost them more than whatever they’d make from flipping Rocket’s loot. Saving the galaxy got you free drinks for life in a few sectors. Saving a podunk moon didn’t even get you a credit from its planet. How long could they afford to go on like this? What would happen when it stopped being feasible?

He sighed, making his way into the hold and setting the bags down next to the rig holders and the free weights rack. The lights went on as he made his way back, and he smiled. Quill had actually gotten off his ass. 

When he got back to the hub, Pete greeted him with a grin and a cheeky wave. He’d emptied all their groceries out onto the hub surface, and had a hand around the neck of a cobalt blue bottle. His broad-tipped fingers toyed with the copper cap, which had been tooled surprisingly intricately in the form of a birdlike creature in flight. 

“Interesting.” Rocket raised his brow. “Don’t think we’ve tried that kind yet.”

“My thoughts exactly,” nodded Quill. He sat up and kicked over another chair for Rocket. “I was a little concerned, though, what with the translator issues. What if we’re out there in the cold nothingness of space and decide to open this little baby up, and it turns out to just be a buttload of juice?”

“Very true.” Rocket slid into the seat, propping his elbows up on a console panel and eyeing the way the light filtered through the glass and the contents within. “And if it is alcohol, there’s no guarantee they didn’t just give us some watered down garbage. The only sensible thing to do would be to open it up and see for ourselves before we go off-planet.”

Quill winked. “Once again you prove yourself to be the greatest tactical mind in the galaxy.”

Rocket’s face heated, but he scoffed. “I’d thank you, but that’s really just a fact, so…way to state the obvious, human.”

Pete laughed, standing up and gesturing towards the kitchen. “Shut up and bring some glasses.”

“Bring?” he echoed, folding his arms.

“You heard me.” That easy, sunny smile. He hated it. Pete jerked his thumb over his shoulder. “You don’t mind if we drink in my room, do you? Don’t really want the others to know we called it so early.”

“I got you,” Rocket winced slightly as he got out of his chair and his back complained. “Our reputation is such a burden.”

“Lesser people would crumble beneath the weight.” Pete yawned and stretched luxuriously, shirt riding up to expose an intriguing trail of hair running from his bellybutton down beneath the hem of those stupid ‘hotpants’. He grabbed the bottle by the neck and started wandering down the hall towards his room.

Rocket swallowed and hollered after him: “Don’t start without me!” before barreling down the corridor to the kitchen. He stopped, backtracked, and picked up some of the more perishable groceries. Wouldn’t hurt to get stuff sorted a little. Place was enough of a mess as it was.

The kitchen area had a definite smell to it, and Rocket’s nose twitched at the assault. Dirty dishes, glasses, utensils, and at least half of the various leftover containers that they owned were stacked in the sink, strewn across the countertops or crowding the low table. Unidentifiable globs sticking to the sides of bowls were growing furry green coats. His lip curled. He’d seen prettier war zones. That’s what you get when you put Drax on the dishes rotation after Peter.

He chucked the perishables in the empty fridge, slammed it with his foot, and dragged a chair over beneath the glasses compartment. He hopped up, activated the door, and…nothing. Flaknards. Rocket looked over the array of glassware on the counter, hoping to find a few cups that were clean enough to just be rinsed out, but no luck. 

“Disgusting,” he muttered, climbing back down. 

He jogged back through the halls, slamming the access panel for Quill’s quarters. The port opened and he was treated to the sight of Quill on his hands and knees, shoving dirty clothes and snack wrappers into the space beneath his bed.

“What are you doing?” Rocket asked, grinning.

Pete jumped upright, cheeks reddening. “Uh…nothing? Looking for my, uh, thing.”

“Mhm.” He limited himself to a skeptical brow lift and keyed the panel closed behind him. “We’re out of clean glasses.”

Pete nodded sagely. “Sounds like Drax is slacking on the dishes again.”

“We should stick him with laundry duty as punishment.” Rocket wandered the room, peering at some of the things Quill had collected over the years. He’d added a few since the last time Rocket had been in here. He stepped quietly around the mounds of clothes and junk that Pete hadn’t managed to hide.

“You got my vote.” Pete sat on the bed next to his discarded jacket and set himself to opening the blue bottle. The bird came free with a chime and a curl of vapor rose up from the dark mouth. Quill sniffed it, held it up to Rocket in a little salute, and put it to his lips, drinking deeply. A bead of pale blue ran from the corner of his mouth and down his stubbled cheek and neck. Rocket watched its progress, fighting the urge to lick his lips.

Quill put the bottle down, eyes wide, and coughed, a smile spreading.

“Well?” Rocket demanded.

“It’s…not watered down,” Pete said, voice hoarse. He offered it to Rocket, and he took it, tipping it up in a quick pull and definitely not thinking about how soft Pete’s lips had looked pressed against the glass. 

The liquor was sweet, but not prohibitively so, with a vaguely fruity aftertaste that softened the burn. High proof. Rocket took another drink and rolled it around his mouth a little before passing it back.

“Not glarkging bad,” he croaked.

“Mm.” Quill drank again, and then popped up on his feet, going to the clunky stereo system mounted against his wall. “We need some sweet jams!”

“Too bad all we got are your lameass tracks,” drawled Rocket, picking the bottle up off the bed and taking another pull. He was starting to warm up again, aches fading.

“Haha, wiseass. You don’t fool me.” The stereo blared to life, and something with a quick backbeat and stumbling piano filled the room. Quill turned dramatically and started hopping around and wiggling his legs to the music, counting out the beats under his breath.

It’s always the same, it’s just a shame, that’s all

Rocket snickered, leaning back against the side of the bed and enjoying the spectacle. “Nice moves.”

Pete waved him over. “Wanna pick up where we left off?”

Rocket took another drink. “You mean the part where we were dancing or the part where I yelled at you for being an idiot?”

Pete rolled his eyes. “The part where we were dancing. Dick.”

What was he feeling? Relief? Gratitude? Stupid. He stood and shook his limbs out in what he hoped was a casual manner and shrugged. “Sure, whatever. At least there’s some glarkging room to really move in here.”

Quill smiled from ear to ear and started to swing his arms from side to side, picking his feet up with exaggerated kicks. “This is called the Charleston.”

Rocket snorted, bouncing on the pads of his feet. “Should be called ‘the mistake’.”

“C’mon, do it with me! It’ll be fun!” His movements grew even more ridiculous.

“Nah, nah, I like to shimmy.” He demonstrated, swishing his tail along with the shuffling.

Quill guffawed, holding his stomach as if it would fall off. “Dude, you look like an arthritic Pflewaiden.”

Rocket scowled. “It’s a shimmy, it’s—it’s just a shimmy. How do you do it?”

Quill crouched, crooking his arms and raising them up to the level of his chin. “Watch and learn, Rock.”

He twisted, wiggling his butt in opposition to his arms.

“That’s ridiculous!” Rocket shouted, throwing his arms out. “Your feet are supposed to move, moron!”

Quill laughed and shuffled over to the bed, taking another drink. “This stuff is good. We should pick up more tomorrow.”

“Yeah, yeah, don’t hog it all.” Rocket grabbed the bottle when Quill had finished and took a few good swallows. He was getting a good buzz going, nicely warm and tingly. Quill was starting to glow, so he must be feeling it too.

The song changed, and they hopped up and started dancing again, manic and bouncing off the walls and furniture. They kept drinking, and their laughter got louder. They bumped into each other with increasing frequency, which just made them laugh more. They danced around until they didn’t have the energy to do more than sit slumped against each other, eyes closed and smiling, listening to the music and passing the bottle between them.

Rocket tipped it up to his lips, head light and ears numb, only to get half a mouthful. 

“Bad news, man,” he said, putting it down with a loud thunk. “We just ran out.”

Quill booed and pushed at him. “Rude! Takin’ the last…mm.” He shifted his weight, rubbing at his eyes.

Rocket got to his feet with difficulty, but the room span around him and his stomach spasmed. “Oh flark, I think I’m gonna puke.”

“Lightweight,” teased Quill, but he held his arms out to help. “Here, sit on the bed.”

“You sure?” Rocket lurched into the bed and clawed his way on top. Soft. Smelled like Quill.

“Of course, dude, don’t—don’t be stupid. You need a bucket?” Quill hauled himself up, bracing himself for a moment against the mattress and belching.

Rocket snickered into the sheets. “No, I’ll just…if I hork it I’ll just do it all over your bed.”

“’S fine, I’ll just use your furry butt to clean it up.” Pete winked when Rocket glared up at him.

“Do it and I’ll murder you. Super hard.” He hiccuped and curled into the fetal position as nausea turned greasily in his stomach.

“Promises, promises.” Pete opened the door and ran into the frame, bouncing back with a spluttering laugh before heading down the hall.

“Be careful, you drunken idiot,” muttered Rocket to the empty room. He sighed, listening to Pete’s uneven steps growing more distant. Quill’s bed was much softer than his cot, and he was feeling tired and heavy. He stretched, groaning as his gut flip-flopped, and grabbed a fistful of sheets, drawing the cloth up over his face. There. Much nicer without all that light. The corn-chip smell of Quill’s old sweat, the pine of his shampoo, and the musty old leather of his jacket was strong. He groaned and twisted up the sheet, winding it over his eyes and away from his muzzle so he wasn’t huffing at his friend’s scent like a creep. Too drunk for that glarkg.

Quill’s music was still playing. Something about taking a train away from tomorrow. Slow and yearning. Would’ve been hard to dance to if they were still messing around. Unless they tried it like they had at the club, before everything fell apart. He remembered the steady strength and gentle warmth of Pete’s hands around his own, and the light in those big blue eyes. They’d been close enough to kiss. Don’t think about that. Don’t think about kissing Quill while you’re in his bed. Oh, and that just opened up a whole other tangent of unthinkable things.

He burped, making a face at the taste of Aethran smorgasbord that filled his mouth. Maybe he should have asked Quill for that bucket.

The door hissed open again, and he heard Quill’s steps enter the room, slightly steadier than they had left it.

“Here you go, bud.” Pete sat heavily at the foot of the bed and held a glass of water down in front of Rocket’s face.

Rocket sat up, taking the cup in both hands and sniffing it suspiciously. “Where’d you get this? I thought we were out of clean glasses.”

Quill shrugged. “Washed the cleanest one I could find.”

Rocket laughed. “You did not.”

“I did!” protested Quill. “Used soap, hot water—the whole shebang.”

“Aw, that’s sweet. I’m touched.” Rocket took a few gulps of water and leaned back, making a face. “Ugh.”

“How you holdin’ up?” Quill lay back, folding his arms behind his head and sighing deeply. Rocket could smell the alcohol coming out of his pores. One of the advantages of being a big idiot was that you could hold on to a good buzz longer, and it wasn’t as easy to cross the line into shit-faced.

“Been worse. Kinda cold.” He leaned back casually, resting the back of his neck against Pete’s stomach. It tensed as the man laughed.

“Want my blanket, princess?”

Rocket grimaced, taking another drink of water. “How long has it been since you washed that? The sheets are flarkging stiff.”

“No blanket, then.” Pete shifted, arm closest to Rocket coming down and draping over his chest. The weight was comforting, and his skin was warm. “Mm, how ‘bout my jacket?”

Rocket grinned lazily, putting the near-empty glass down on the floor and scooting a little so his side was flush with Pete’s. “Same issue, dude.”

“I guess that just leaves one option.” Pete laughed again and shuffled onto his side, gently turning Rocket over so he was nestled up against the larger man’s chest and stomach. 

Da’st the guy was like a furnace, except soft. Rocket sighed deeply, snuggling in closer. His heart was hammering, but he could feel Quill’s beating against his back and it was steady as the thrumming of the engines. Quill’s warm breath stirred the fur at the top of his head. 

“I guess it does,” he murmured, tucking his tail up between his legs and hugging it to himself. The nausea had mostly subsided, and now he just felt slow and heavy. There was a dim thrilling at the back of his skull and his eyes were hot, but it wasn’t unpleasant.

“Want me to turn the music down?” Quill’s voice was a low, delicious buzz against his spine, and he shivered, ears pricking.

“Nah, it’s not that bad.” He swallowed and closed his eyes. “Distracts from the dizziness.”

Pete snorted. “Just admit you like it, Rock. It’s not that hard.”

“Ugh, fine,” he groaned, “If it’ll get you to shut up, I like it.”

“I am so proud of you, dude. Now tell me I’m pretty.”

Rocket snickered. “Like you need your ego inflated any more than it is already.”

Quill put an arm over him again, hand laying relaxed on the mattress in front of him. The proximity normally would have panicked him, made him feel trapped, but right now Rocket felt more like he was floating effortlessly in a warm sea. The smell of Quill and booze and sleep surrounded and stilled him, and he just wanted to open himself to all of it at once. The thought of smell made him start guiltily, and he curled up away from Pete. 

“You okay?” Pete lifted his arm away immediately, concern cutting through the lazy drink-softened fog that had swallowed them both.

“I probably stink,” babbled Rocket, running his claws over his head self-consciously. “Do I stink? I bet I stink.”

Quill leaned in and sniffed loudly behind his ear. “Nope. You’re good. A little booze, a little sweat. Maybe some grass, is all.”

He snorted, sitting up and immediately regretting it as his head spun. “Oof. Don’t be cute. Everyone says I stink.”

Pete snickered. “They may not be literal. You’re kind of a trug.”

“Shut up.” He hung his feet over the edge of the bed, staring down at the metal floor beyond his paws. He should go. This couldn’t stay good, and it’d be better to cut it off before he made an ass of himself, but da’st did he want to lie back down and feel Quill miraculously around him, and—

“See? Trug.” The bed shifted as Quill sat up, and he felt a tentative touch on his shoulder. “No, but you—you have like a musk? But it’s not bad, it’s just you.”

Rocket scoffed, but a knot in his shoulders loosened, and he eased himself back down. “You say the sweetest things.”

Quill flopped down next to him and curled in again. His chin bumped the top of Rocket’s head briefly, and Rocket could feel his heart beating faster. “Just for you, cutie.”

He laughed and exhaled steadily, feeling suddenly like he was dissolving into the bed, into Quill and the room, the ship around them. Like he was just a quiet, warm part of the night and the music here and somehow also around everywhere else in the galaxy. And it was more than alright.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> spooning>>>openly confessing your feelings when they are obviously reciprocated


	6. Morning After

_They were nothing. They were everything. They were every star and the blackness between them. They were an old, lightless sea and a white flame burning. They were stripped bare to the wind and stood in the eye of the hurricane. They could feel everything and everyone around them, could count the carbon atoms in the man who held the part of them that had been stolen, could taste the light of the blue star three hundred and forty-eight systems away, and they could hear the low thrum of the Device. They sped through the cosmos, arrowing towards the splintered, guttering seed of themself on an insignificant planet. They reached and recoiled in one motion, cold pain arcing through their wing. Their agonized shriek rippled out, reverberating in minds of psionic potentates throughout the galaxy, but those pinpricks of ability were nothing, nothing compared to the power they could sense there, just outside their grasp. Such a little thing, the slow buzzing of its mind only now beginning to lose the barriers which had shielded it from their sight. They had sensed these dim flickerings of potential before, been close enough to tear them away for themself on several occasions, but only now could they see themself within them, and taste the honey-sweetness of vulnerability._

_But the chill of the Device sent an unfamiliar shiver of fear down their being, and they hid themself behind the stars, watchful. They had been hunting the shard for millennia—they could afford to wait a little longer._

 

Rocket rose from a dark sleep, moving through shrouds and whispers of unfamiliar dreams that left him uneasy. Warmth surrounded him and music was playing softly, lilting guitar and soft voices just low enough to indecipherable, but their tone was affectionate and bittersweet. Quill’s stomach rose and fell against him steadily, the gentle snuffle of his snores puffing in his ear. For a moment he was calm, full of a rare and almost blissful peace. Then his head turned inside out.

“Oh, flarkging—” he buried his face in the mattress as if external pressure would relieve the throbbing. Ugh, this was worse than any hangover he’d had. That he could remember, at least. Quill grunted in his sleep, and Rocket grimaced. He touched the arm that had been wrapped around him, lingering a moment before gingerly lifting it away and scooting out from under it. Da’st, his everything was sore. 

He paused at the edge of the bed and looked back to Pete, smirking at how his face was smushed into the sheets, tousled hair falling across his smooth brow and mouth parted. Moron. He leaned over automatically, stopping in shock when his whiskers brushed Quill’s cheek. Nope. Nope, nope, nope, not gonna do that. Not gonna risk…whatever this was, if anything. Even if they’d both been drunk, Quill had trusted him enough to let him sleep in his room, in his da’st arms. That didn’t mean he wanted…ugh. His head hurt too much for this.

Rocket slipped off the bed without looking back, snagging the empty glass from the floor. He went to the access panel and pressed his palm to it, wincing at the loudness of the pneumatic hiss as the port opened. He listened for a moment, ears pricked for signs of Quill stirring. Nothing. More snoring. Good. He keyed the door closed and trudged down the hall toward the kitchen, rubbing at his temples.

Don’t think about it—just be grateful. Don’t ruin what definitely did happen with what-ifs and other glarkg. Don’t think. Thinking made the hangover worse. On the other hand, there was a lot to think about. A lot to review, parse out who had initiated what and what it could mean and where it could lead, but—

“Don’t think about it,” he muttered under his breath, pushing his palm into his forehead as if it could push out the thoughts. “It didn’t mean anything. Stupid, glarkging—”

“Good morning, Rocket. What didn’t mean anything?” Angela’s voice stopped his heart and he flinched, grabbing at his chest.

“Da’st, red,” he scowled up at the musclebound woman leaning against the kitchen counter, smirking and drinking a steaming mug of coffee. Most of the dirty dishes were gone, the remainder ordered neatly by the sink and the washer chugging steadily. “You back on the team, or what?”

She shrugged, broad shoulders straining the gray shirt she wore. “Visiting. You smell like a mead hall.”

“So I got a little drunk last night, so what?” Rocket squinted at the shirt. “Izzat Quill’s?”

She shrugged again, plucking dismissively at the fabric over her stomach. “I found it on the floor.”

“Yeah, probably Quill’s.” He brushed past her and pulled a chair up to the counter so he could get at the coffeemaker. Ugh, his back was screaming. He rinsed out his glass and poured, inhaling the thick cloud of steam that rose up around his face with relief. Still had half a pot.

“You, uh, got any other clean cups?” he asked.

She opened the glasses compartment and pulled out a large mug, handing it to him with an eyebrow raised. “You get laid last night?”

“It’s just easier than coming back for a second cup,” he said, face burning. “Also mind your own krutacking business.”

She grinned, taking another drink. “Good for you.”

He snorted. “I take it you and Gamora had a good time, then? You bringing her breakfast in bed?”

Her cheeks went as red as her hair. “She needs more sleep than I do. Thought I’d help around the ship while she rested.”

“Cute.” Rocket filled the second mug and got down, careful not to spill. He hesitated before leaving the kitchen. “Uh, thanks. For the dishes and stuff.”

“Think nothing of it,” she waved off the awkward thanks. “You were good hosts to me before. I miss hanging around this ship.”

“You know you can stay, right?” he tilted his head. “You’re good in a fight and you’re better company than a lot of the flaknards who tool around with us.”

She sighed. “Thank you, and perhaps I will in the future, but for now…those who have claimed me have laid an important task at my feet. I would see it done as soon as possible.”

“Suit yourself.” He shifted his weight. “When did you, ah, want to meet with us? For the…talking thing?”

“Unfortunately I’ll need one of the As—my team to be present.” Her mouth quirked in a cynical smile. “Official Asgardian business. It would seem I do not have my father’s full trust as yet.”

“Gotcha. Anything we should know off-record?”

Her eyes flickered. “Do you still have…what’s the phrase? Greasy fingers?”

“Sticky fingers, I think,” he corrected, running through his mental catalogue of Earth idioms. “Maybe. What’s your point?”

“Don’t mention it to the others,” she said. “I’ll tell you more after we’ve searched the moon.”

“Fine. Be cryptic.” He rolled his eyes and left, sipping the hot black coffee as he stumped along. 

He could hear someone in the shower as he passed, and there were dim noises of metal on metal coming from the cargo hold, but there was no one in sight when he stopped in front of Quill’s door. Muffled suggestions of music came through the metal, but no movement. He shifted his weight from foot to foot, brow furrowed.

Just go in. You’re friends. He helped you when you were drunk and this is a totally appropriate gesture of gratitude. Just open the door and go in. But coffee in the morning is different. Hand delivered? Intimate. Also uncharacteristic. What if he thought it was more than it was? He won’t think that, just open the flarking door. But if he did? Or if Quill thought _he_ thought it was more than it was, and the coffee just made things awkward? What if Quill didn’t like coffee? That was stupid—he’d seen the moron drink gallons of the stuff. That’s a non-issue. This whole thing was a non-issue, and he was wasting time.

He groaned, pivoting to go to his room, but following through so he just spun in a circle. That was all he ever did, apparently. Decisively, he smacked the access panel with his elbow and slipped into the room before the door had even opened all the way. 

The high windows in Quill’s room let in gentle fingers of amber morning light, shining softly off the knick knacks displayed on his shelves and the glass front of his stereo system. The bed stayed in relative shadow, but it was easy to imagine the warm flush traveling as the suns rose, slipping over the rumpled sheets at the foot of the bed and bathing Pete as he slept. His face felt hot, and he hurriedly set the mug down at Quill’s bedside dresser, slopping a little piping hot coffee over his paw. 

He hissed, glancing guiltily at Pete, but he was sleeping soundly, snoring still. He scratched behind his ear, looking at his feet and murmuring as gently as he could. “Uh…thanks, man. I’ll ah, see you later.”

He darted out into the hall and closed the door after him, jogging back to his room and entering gratefully. It was dark and the air was stale. He slumped, his aches and pains flooding back into the forefront of his awareness. He grimaced and picked his way around the piles of loot and gear to his trunk, opening it without ceremony and snagging his pain relievers. He swallowed three or four with a gulp of hot coffee and sat down on his cot, stretching out the soreness. What a flarking day.

Rocket spent the next few hours sprawled out in the gloom on a cot that felt thin and lumpy, nursing his coffee and massaging out the complaining in his arms and legs. When he heard the shower turn off, he got up and took a quick ten minutes. Cold water, no singing—focusing with determined singularity on getting the stickiness of Aethran dance floor out of his fur. So focused, in fact, that he accidentally used Quill’s shampoo instead of Drax’s and had to rewash with something of Gamora’s that smelled like Altroofian frostflowers so he didn’t come off as a desperate idiot. He managed just fine being a regular idiot, thank you very glarkging much. He growled and shook, turning off the water with an irritated jerk.

Stupid, stupid, stupid. Nothing had changed. Nothing had to change. Things were fine. He was fine. He was just flarking peachy. He wrapped the towel he’d used yesterday around himself again and went back to his room, grumbling under his breath. He tugged on an old jumpsuit, fraying around the cuffs, and headed out again. Maybe he just needed to eat. He got kind of crazy when he was hungry.

“Morning, Rocket.” Gamora passed him in the hall, smiling dreamily. She always moved with an athletic grace, but there was something…floaty about her today, and he resented it. “How was your night?”

“Great. Won four billion units and was crowned grand emperor of the galaxy.” He kept walking.

“You and Quill missed a pretty great—”

“Yeah, we get it, you got some last night,” he snarled. “Whoop-de-flarking-doo.”

She stalked after him and flicked his ear.

“Ouch!”

“Is it so important to you that you start the day by being a trug?” she demanded, dreamy demeanor dissipated.

“Yes.” He glared up at her. 

She folded her arms. “Then do it to someone else. Unless you want to also start the day by being unconscious.”

“You know, that sounds pretty good to me.” He was pretty sure she wouldn’t hit him, but in all honesty getting knocked out would simplify things significantly.

She narrowed her eyes, regarding him critically. His ears flicked back.

“What?” he demanded.

“You’re jealous,” she said, leaning back and arching her eyebrow. “You know Angela isn’t—”

He rolled his eyes. “It’s not Angela. Forget it. Sorry I ruined your afterglow.”

“Just go out and pick someone up—it’s not like you haven’t done it before.” She wrinkled her nose. “Or…you know. Those things you—”

“Yeah, I remember why I installed the lock on my door,” he interrupted, face heating. “But again, knocking as common courtesy is pretty much a galaxy-wide constant. So really, you’re the one responsible for both our emotional scarring.”

She scowled at him, but didn’t push the point further. He felt bad, though. She’d made it work. He didn’t know exactly how, but she had, and it wasn’t her fault that he was too much of an idiot to resolve this thing with Peter.

“Sorry,” he said, his tongue curling haltingly around the word. Gamora looked taken aback. His gaze slid to the floor and he scuffed a paw against the metal grillwork. “Aaanyway, you said we missed good stuff. What, uh… what stuff did we miss?”

He saw suspicion in her eyes, but she decided to let it go, relaxing her shoulders. “There was, um, another dessert course. Some kind of sweet sponge thing. And then the littlest king person—I think they’re a regency society? Or some kind of aristocratic council authority? But they gave another speech.”

“Oh yeah,” he drawled, smirking. “Sounds like a real flarkin’ hootenanny.”

She snorted. “‘Hootenanny’? Where did you pick that one up?”

Earth. Glarkging naturally.

“Nowhere. I don’t know. We’ve been so many places.” He arched his brow. “Speech?”

“Mm, yeah,” she grinned, tucking a black lock behind her ear. She gestured down the hall and he shrugged, falling into step next to her. “It was atrocious. Whatever tonal thing they have going on, the translators couldn’t get a word of it.”

“Yeah?”

“Mhm. But Drax thought it was an volume issue, so he kept interrupting, asking the king to speak up.” 

“Oh no.”

“Exactly. After a few rounds, the poor king was screaming and all the others looked extremely uncomfortable, and Drax had scooted his chair around the corner and was leaning across the other regents, practically laying in their laps—”

“And they didn’t suspect he was lying?” Rocket was pretty sure they didn’t—Drax was earnest in everything he did, and when he occasionally tried to lie, he was terrible at it. They’d only tried the Prognite Wedding Special with Drax once, and he’d just repeated ‘oh no, I am so sick’ in an echoing monotone until the band petered out and the entire Nova Corps Quincentennial Gala was staring incredulously at them. They’d kept a wide berth of that sector for a good year after that.

She shook her head, smirking. “Eventually one of the Asgardians stood up and just said he was tired. Everyone was shocked, and then another king dismissed us all. It was really awkward. No one knew what order to walk out in, so we just left.”

“And Angela came with you?” he cocked his head.

“Angela came with us,” she grinned, cheeks flushing a deep pine. “And then she came with me.”

“How crass.” He put a paw to his forehead in mock consternation. “I think I’m blushing.”

“What about you guys? What did you get up to?” 

“Nothing much,” he shrugged. “Drank. Explored the city. Drank some more.”

They entered the kitchen, which smelled amazing. Angela had been piling a plate high with blue scrambled eggs and round purple fruit, but dropped her task with a wide smile when she saw Gamora come in.

“Lady Gamora! I thought you were sleeping in!”

“I was, but I missed you.” She crossed the small space and embraced the taller woman. Green fingers threaded through red hair. When they pulled back, Angela put a hand to her cheek, thumb moving in a gentle arc. Rocket felt his stomach bottom out, a yawning hunger roaring up from the void. Food. It’s gotta be about the food.

“Hi, Rocket! Nice to see you, Rocket!” he mimed in a high-pitched voice that truthfully sounded nothing like Angela, but was obnoxious enough to make her turn and roll her freaky glowing eyes. He went to the fridge and rummaged around, pulling out more fruit and a box of what looked like fried crickets, adding a tub of nutrient goo to the pile. He shut the door with his foot.

“I think I said as much before, Rocket Raccoon,” said the Asgardian, amusement quirking her lips. “How was the coffee?”

He bared his teeth at her in an insincere grin. “Hot. Lemme have some of those eggs.”

“Make your own eggs,” hissed Gamora, snatching up the plate from the table as a precaution. “These are mine.”

“This is how a team falls apart, you know!” he yelled as he waddled out of the kitchen under his load of food. “First comes the not sharing, then comes the literal backstabbing.”

“Goodbye, Rocket! Nice to see you, Rocket!” Angela hollered after him. 

He heard the women laugh together and grumbled under his breath. He took a bite out of a fruit, the sweet flesh parting with a chill burst of juice. Mm. He stuffed the rest of it in his mouth and chewed thickly. Should probably get started on ship maintenance once he’d finished eating. If the Asgardians weren’t on a strict schedule, it’d probably be a while before Angela was able to join the moon search, so he’d have some time to burn. Better to use it for something that would occupy his attention than to just stew in his room.

Heavy footfalls sounded beyond the bend, and Groot stepped into view. Most of his bad mood evaporated, and he trotted up to his friend, grinning through the mouthful of fruit.

“Hey man, how’s it going? Are you hungry?”

Groot smiled and sent a few vines down to stroke his head and shoulders. One curled inquisitively around another of the purple fruits and lifted it up to his head.

“I am Groot,” he said, sniffing at the fruit and then taking a giant bite. Purple juice spattered the walkway, and Rocket stepped back to avoid getting hit.

“Yeah, we should’ve let you in on it. But the bar scene here sucks, so you didn’t miss much.”

“I am Groot?”

“Nah, the drinks aren’t bad, but the music is terrible. What’d you get up to?” He wiped his muzzle with the back of his hand. 

“I am Groot.” Groot shook his head noncommittally and finished the rest of the fruit, reaching for another.

“You’re like an old person, I swear. Next time we’re back on Knowhere, we’re taking you out and getting flarked up.” He twisted his dwindling stash of food away from Groot’s hand. “More in the kitchen if you like ‘em.”

“I am Groot!” The big tree made a plaintive face, amber eyes shining.

“Ugh, fine.” Rocket relented, letting Groot take another fruit. “But that’s it. Lemme know if you feel like doing repairs later.”

“I am Groot?”

“No, I don’t want to gossip,” he snapped defensively, “I want to fix the krutacking ship and you’re a big idiot, but at least you know a trillium spanner from a Grubrik wrench.” 

Groot creaked with amusement.

“Hey, I know a krillian spanner from a Gubbok stench.” Quill leaned against the corridor wall, grinning and taking a gulp from his mug of coffee. “What gives, Rock? I thought you were gonna show me stuff.”

Rocket swallowed, face stinging. “I uh, didn’t think you were serious. But sure, I can come get you if you really want to learn.”

Groot was grinning, looking back and forth between them. Quill’s hair was still mussed from sleep, but he’d changed into sweats and a new shirt. There were creases on his cheek from being pressed against the sheets, and Rocket’s fingers itched to trace them.

“You know me. All about the learning.” Quill pushed off the wall and walked past them, snagging a fruit from Rocket’s armload as he passed. He tossed it spinning in the air, caught it one-handed, and bit into it with relish.

“Hey, you owe me another glarkging plum!” he hollered after him.

“I am Groot,” said the tree in a sing-song tone.

“You shut up. And what do you know about flirting, anyway?” Rocket swatted his leg and stormed off down the corridor. Groot trailed after.

“I am Groot?”

Rocket flinched, wheeling on his friend. “Holy flark, no! N-we just got drunk and danced a little!”

Groot hummed doubtfully.

“Listen pal,” he checked both ways down the hall but could neither hear nor see anyone coming. “We spooned. But it—it was ambiguous.”

“I am Groot?” 

“Anything can be ambiguous!” he hissed, face feeling flushed and tail twitching. “I’m not a glarkging telepath, okay? And it was great, minus the whole drunk-off-our-asses part.”

“I am Groot?” he asked, with a slightly teasing lilt.

“Little spoon,” huffed Rocket, re-gathering his food and waddling on.

“I am Groot!” cooed Groot, following him and blooming small starry flowers.

“Shut up.” Rocket stumped on towards his room and sighed, turning to his friend again. “I just…don’t wanna screw things up, okay?”

Groot nodded, smile falling. A few sympathetic tendrils touched his arm and a broad hand patted his back. The yellow flowers smelled sweet and some of the tension in his neck relaxed.

“Thanks, buddy.” Rocket opened his door, considered, and tossed one last fruit back to the big guy. “Don’t fill up on this, okay? Eat some other stuff, too.”

“I am Groot!” he promised, catching the plum out of the air and stuffing it promptly into his mouth.

Rocket laughed and waved, stepping into his room and closing the door. He dumped the remaining food on his cot and cracked open the box of fried crickets, flipping one up and snapping it up midturn. Crispy. 

His message hub was blinking red, and he went to it. Something from an old fence’s holoaddress, but the subject line was suspiciously formal. Probably a sweep. He deleted it. Spam, a receipt from last night’s bar, and…something from Quill. He ate another cricket, chewing meditatively. Sent this morning. He swallowed, crossing his arm and sitting back. His heart was racing and his throat felt tight. Was it about the coffee? Did he know? Was he uncomfortable? He didn’t seem uncomfortable earlier—why would he have asked about helping with the ship repairs again if he was uncomfortable?

He rolled his eyes at himself and opened the message. Quill’s sleepy face filled the screen, focused on something else at first, but then he blinked and turned his attention into the camera and smiled that stupid crooked smile.

“Hey dude. Just, uh, woke up. Alone. Not the first time, haha, uh…but I just wanted to make sure you didn’t, um. Feel like you had to leave?” He grinned sheepishly and ran a hand through his messy hair. “Glad you’re not too hungover to move, but, you know. It would’ve been fine if you stayed. If you wanted to, I mean.”

He looked distracted, sniffing, and glanced to the side, eyes widening in surprise. “Holy shit, yes.”

He leaned away with a grunt and came back holding a steaming mug, inhaling the cloud reverently. Blue eyes popped open, glinting wickedly. “You sweet little trug. Thanks, man.”

He winked and took a careful sip, and the message terminated.

Rocket became aware that he was grinning, and ducked his head, ears burning. Stupid Terran was easily pleased. It was just coffee. A real gift would be more—he shot up and searched the rumpled blankets on his cot. Got it. He set the little bowl instrument in his lap and plucked the silvery strings. Nice. He finger-picked absently as he accessed his personal file organizer and searched the cloned library of Quill’s music he’d made a while back until he found the right track.

There.

He listened intently to it once, ignoring the soft bloom of warmth in his chest as it played, bringing the memories of those perfect golden moments of that morning. Then he started it over, strumming the strings and trying to follow the liquid flow of notes, humming lowly to the vocals. He learned fast. Always had. This was one of the first times he’d used it for something non-explosives-related, but it was easy to focus, and soon he’d managed a fumbling but accurate reproduction of the melody. Fumbling wasn’t good enough, so he snacked and continued, daring to sing softly along to snatches while his claws darted over the impassive face of the instrument.

“…my mind’s distracted and diffused…” he hummed, trying different positions of his claws until a full chord chimed out. “My thoughts—my thoughts are many…miles away. Away. Hm.”

Doing it by ear was hard, but it’s not like he could look up tablature for an instrument he didn’t even know the name of, so he’d just have to keep practicing. Besides, it was a detailed challenge requiring a high degree of concentration, which was pretty much his favorite kind of project. Playing also had…a strangely soothing effect on him, and the remaining pain in his head faded quickly. He closed his eyes, focusing on the music and the sounds produced by the tentative strumming of his claws. He felt the soft light within himself flare a little, hazy images of Quill and him drifting in his mind’s eye. He felt himself opening up like he had last night, a dizzy widening of his consciousness that was scary but, in an electric, tremulous way, beautiful. He could feel the slight twisting of air around him, cycled lazily around the ship, and smell lingering green, growth, from the scattered fruit on his sheets. His heartbeat thundered in his ears, and suddenly he was outside himself and could see his own body floating cross-legged, an easy two feet above his cot.

His eyes flew open in shock and he yelped as he fell, landing hard on his ass.

“What the krutacking…” he hissed, rubbing his butt and shoving the instrument away from him. He breathed heavily, thoughts racing. What had that thing been doing? What even was it?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's been reading along so far, and for your amazingly sweet comments. I'm so grateful for your support and glad you're enjoying this project! Gettin' into some plot now...
> 
> Also I've been reading more Angela stuff and I did not know she already has a gf! For one thing that's awesome and I can't wait to read more, but I also don't want to erase Sera, so Angie's gonna be a poly lesbian, happily and healthily in relationships with Sera and Gamora.


	7. Routine Maintenance and Other Coping Mechanisms

He thought for a long time on his cot, staring down at the little bowl instrument. He didn’t like or trust anything that made him lose control. Whatever its purpose, it was clearly more powerful than it looked. Maybe powerful enough to be a threat? Should he call the others in on this? Who would know about it?

A thought struck him and he groaned. What if this was the mysterious thing the Asgardians wanted? It looked too subtle for their lot, but weird magic shit was right up their alley. If it was, he’d probably get the overview tonight. If it wasn’t, involving them would only muddy the waters. He could figure this out with the team just fine. If Angela and her little gaggle of fat-chinned L’Oreal models thought he’d hidden the thing from them intentionally and got pissed…he’d cross that bridge when he came to it. For now, though, he’d stow it where no one would just stumble over it. 

He scooped it up by the base, careful not to disturb the strings, and brought it over to his cabinet. He put a shoulder to the steel side and shoved it a couple feet over, then bent to examine the floor beneath it. A little scuffed, but it looked whole. He put a claw to the center of one of the scratch marks and twisted. 

The panel popped up with a pressurized hiss and he opened the bolt hatch to his private stash. Emergency stock of weapons and ammo, a portable medic kit, some fake IDs, spare suit and aero-rig, etc. Basically anything he’d need if the ship was compromised or the Guardians were disbanded on short notice. He only opened it now and then to make sure everything was still there, and to add little items. For every thousand units he made, he had about a hundred deposited into little burner chits, and stowed ‘em down here. Some of Gamora’s protein packets were there for emergencies. Extreme emergencies. And now, the device. He lowered it gingerly onto a pile of armor and replaced the lid, resealing the hatch and dragging the cabinet back over the false panel.

He let out a shaky breath. It’d be fine. No one else knew about the hatch—not even Groot. Whatever it was, it’d be safe here. Unable to work… whatever that weirdness had been. He tried to review its effects objectively, tried to analyze what it had been doing to him, but no matter how he thought of it, he couldn’t remember feeling anything influencing him. It may have managed to lull him into some sort of passive state, but it didn’t seem to have autonomy. Unless it did, and was simply powerful enough to entirely conceal its influence from his comprehension. He shivered.

Couldn’t stay here. All he’d do would be obsess over that thing and what it could mean. He scratched the back of his head irritably, picking at yesterday’s wound, and decided to start working on the ship. That would at least help him burn time and shake the weirdness of leaving his body. He rattled around one of his cubbies, stuffing assorted tools into his belt and strapping on a metal refabrication rig. May as well start on the hull. He ate a few more crickets as he checked the room for any gear he might need. Spare refab canisters would be in the hold, so he should be good. Okay.

Rocket started for the door and stopped, nose twitching. Flarkging Quill. He doubled back to his workbench and sent a quick message:

_still wanna fix stuff? roof. grab a rig_

He readjusted his refab rig straps and sighed. Metal, think about metal. Engines, stabilizers, shield generators, etc. Constants with consistent, fixable problems. You want to hover six feet off the ground, you build an aerorig. You don’t strum a mysterious instrument and float out of your flarkging body. 

He stamped heavily down the corridor, chewing on his lower lip. He was used to different kinds of fear. The acetylene tremors in his gut before a big fight, static heat at his neck when they popped out of a jump in the middle of an asteroid field, the chill plunge of his heart each time Groot was reduced to splinters. This black fog at the edges of his mind, seeping into places it didn’t belong, was less familiar. He scratched the back of his head.

He entered the cargo hold and scooped up a rig from the charging dock, slapping the port access. The door slid open, admitting a flood of light that stung his eyes and a rush of wind that smelled like the sea. He scowled, putting a hand up over his eyes and stepping out onto the grass. The sky looked pink now that both suns were up and shining down, and there were tiny multicolored skiffs dotting the green sea. He tipped his head up and closed his eyes, letting the light wash over his face. He activated his rig in a short burst and shot up into the air, cool wind rippling his fur. He touched down at the top of the hull with a light tamping, and propped his fists on his hips, surveying the shining pocked metal. 

Between the odd starjacker, flotsam from the aftermath of the odd starjacker, Pete’s landings, and micrometeorites, his home got knocked around quite a bit. He tried to do some basic refabrication of the hull every time they stopped over somewhere for longer than a day, and it had become another one of his rituals. It was hard to think of a weird instrument strung with unidentifiable metal being a threat capable of popping his consciousness out of his body like a Flubräkian snail out of its shell when he was out under the sun and settling into a familiar chore. He unhooked the diffuser from its slot on the refabricator and set it to a fine spray. He started to work on the closest site, sniffing the breeze. Flowers and a slight acridity from the refab mist. Sunlight warmed his ears and tail. Not bad.

There was something cathartic about watching the scrapes smooth out, the pocks fill in, and he started humming a little as he swept the hull.

There was a whoop and the crisp hissing of a rig activating behind him, and he felt slight impact tremor in the metal under his feet.

“So you decided to show up after all, huh?” he half-turned, grinning over at Quill. The half-Terran smiled broadly, popping his knuckles theatrically.

“Gotta make sure we get this done right, Rock.”

“Yeah, sure. Get over here, dummy.” He waved him over and gestured at the refab unit. “You used these before, right?”

“Mhm.” Quill sauntered over, crouching close and looking closer at the one Rocket wore. “Think it was an older model, though.”

“They’re all basically the same,” he shrugged, neck hot, and angled the diffuser wand so he could see it better. “This one has five dispersal settings. Fine fan, fine focused, medium spray, medium dense, heavy jet. Only use heavy jet for actual hull breaches. It just shits out dense globs and eats the canister faster than anything.”

“Mkay, makes sense.” Pete traced the setting dial gently. “And you’re using the…fine fan now?”

“Yeah. That’s really the only one you need unless we take heavy fire.” He jerked his head toward a scorched patch and demonstrated. “Just even sweeps. Should only take three or four coats.”

“Cool, cool, um…” Quill stood up and folded his arms. “Don’t laugh.”

“What?” he cocked his head.

“Don’t laugh.” Quill’s cheeks were red.

“I heard you, I just—” he could feel an automatic snicker rising, but bit his cheeks to keep it down, confining himself to a quizzical brow raise.

“I have a question.” Pete rubbed his jaw and looked casually across the horizon.

“Okay?” 

“What happens if you…spray yourself?”

He rolled his eyes. “Don’t worry. It’s id— it’s impulse-proof. Base-intelligence nanites programmed to detect organic matter. You’ll just get some weird-smelling metal dust on your foot or whatever.”

Quill looked disappointed. “That’s lame. How sweet would it be if we could just spray on, like, a coat of armor?”

Rocket grinned. “It’d be way too time-consuming. And there’d be patches behind your back and stuff that’d be too thin. And getting it off would be flarkging awful.”

“Psh, that’s why I’ve got sidekicks.” He winked down at Rocket.

He laughed. “Dude, c’mon, you’re definitely the sidekick. You wanna try the refab unit?” He undid the shoulder straps and offered it to Pete. 

The other man nodded rapidly and snatched the rig, sliding it over his back. He spread his legs way out, scooting his feet about double shoulder’s-width apart, and brandishing the diffuser wand like a sword. Rocket snorted as the half-Terran leapt around, swishing the refabricator and blasting the heavily damaged patches and making action noises with his mouth. To his credit, he did seem to be covering a lot of ground.

“You’re a natural, Quill!” he hollered at the other man, who had hopped over by one of the shield emitters.

“Thanks!” Quill gave him a thumbs-up and turned the diffuser on the panels around the emitter. He stopped pretty quickly, though, cocking his head and crouching down to examine it more closely. “Uh…Rock?”

Rocket was already on his way. He knelt down next to Quill and groaned. The emitter casing had taken a serious hit since his last repair sweep. The casing was blackened and crumpled, and had even been ripped open near the base. Peering in, he could see a bundle of wiring that looked like the inert coating had fused. From what he could see of the main plasma conduit, it seemed to be in good condition. There’s a flarkging silver lining.

“Great. I’ll take care of this. You good with the refabricator?”

“Sure,” nodded Pete. “I’ve just about mastered it, in fact.”

“Yeah, yeah, gold star, pal.” He unclipped his toolpack from his belt and rummaged around. “We’ll be done faster if you focus on the hull while I take care of this.”

“Gotcha.” Pete stood up with a grunt and his shadow fell over Rocket, cooling him for a moment. Then it was gone and the sun sank back into his fur. 

Rocket could hear the refabricator hissing gently. Weird that it was a comforting sound even when someone else was using it. Rocket picked through his tools and went to work on the wiring. It wasn’t as bad as it looked—he could ease a few of the wires apart with minimal prompting. There were only three or four strands that probably needed detailed work. He pulled his anticonductive gloves from the pack and applied a little more force. No luck. He slid the teeth of his wirecutters between the melted cables and snipped through the coating. He felt the separated cables, gauging whether the amount of insulation left was safe to leave. Mostly. A little thin up near the hub.

He fished around in his tool pack and pulled out a capsule of moldable putty, scooping a little out with his gloved claw and shaping it more smoothly until it was uniform. He took up the pen laser and carefully heated the putty until it had sealed. The feed into the hub was pretty smooth. He’d worried that whatever had hit the emitter had disconnected the wiring, but they’d gotten lucky. The casing was trashed. Nothing to really worry about—they had replacements in the hold. What was concerning was the fact that the emitter spout itself had been bent askew about thirty degrees. That would be just enough to interrupt the stream and leave a hole in their shield net. 

He shifted his weight a little, squinting at the fixture and pulling his pack closer. He got a couple vise grips and tried to ease it back into place. He pushed harder, feeling the metal start to give. It strained, but straightened without breaking entirely. He should probably reinforce it.

“How’s it goin’, bud?”

He winced, dropping a vise grip. “Shit, dude. Scared me.”

“Yeah, you jumped about a foot.” Pete was grinning down at him. “Did you know you were humming?”

“I don’t hum!” he bristled, snatching up the vise grip. “Weren’t you doing something?”

Quill shrugged. “Finished most of it. Got bored. Need a hand?”

He put the vise grip back down, neck hot. “Ah, sure. Could you hand me the solder crimp?”

“This?” Pete passed him a wire twister. He suppressed a smile.

“No.”

“Is this it?” 

“Mm, that’s an antigrav leveler.” He shook his head and sat back on his heels, tracing the shape of the requested tool in the air. “Looks like that.”

“Okay, okay…here.” Pete passed him a spool of copper wire.

Rocket spluttered, hands flying out wide. “Are you krutacking kidding me, dude? I—” Then he saw the glint in Pete’s eyes. “You’re flarkging with me.”

Quill’s eyes widened in a parody of innocence, and he put a hand to his heart. “Me? Never.”

He grinned and punched the other man’s thigh. “You trug.”

Quill ducked his head and snickered, pawing around in the pack and pulling out the solder crimp with confidence. “You were just being so patient, I had to see how long you could keep it up.”

He snorted, taking the tool and clamping the teeth around the weakened emitter. He activated the heating element and the ozone smell of burning metal filled the air around them. 

“Smells like butts,” grumbled Quill, sitting heavily next to him. 

“Smells like your butt,” Rocket muttered absently.

Quill snorted and rolled over on his back. “Man, this is boring.”

“So leave. Do something fun. I told you that you didn’t have to be here.” He readjusted the grip, heating lower down the stem.

“Do you want me to go?” asked Quill in a deliberately casual way that made Rocket’s ears prick.

“I didn’t say that,” Rocket said carefully. “But if you’re not having a rollicking good time, you might as well find someone else to bother.”

“Am I bothering you?” Something uncertain beneath the teasing tone.

“Nah, the company is nice.” He cleared his throat. “Your company is nice.”

Pete laughed. “If I had a unit for every time I heard that—”

“You’d still be broke.” Rocket grinned at the resulting cries of protest.

“Whatever, dude.” Quill sighed, putting his hands behind his head and closing his eyes. “You get my message?”

“Mhm.” Rocket let off the crimper, testing the emitter. Seemed stable. Must be nice. “Thanks for, uh, helping me out last night.”

“Of course. You’d’ve done it for me.” Pete shifted, his side brushing Rocket’s tail. “You sleep okay?”

Rocket didn’t want to talk about the dark dreams, the dark, greasy feeling of being hunted, the queasiness of being watched. It didn’t matter where he was, who he was with—it just happened now and then. Wasn’t usually that visceral, but he’d had a lot to drink. “I usually have problems falling asleep. Didn’t last night. You?”

“Really good.” Quill cleared his throat. “Man, it’s a flarkging gorgeous day.”

“Yeah, this place is a whole lot prettier than the usual shitholes we wind up in.” He detached the casing from its hinge and put it aside. He’d have to get a new one from the hold.

“We should enjoy it. Go swimming or something. Who knows when we’ll find another world this pretty.”

Rocket’s first instinct was to mock him, but actually it wasn’t such a bad idea. “You know what? Sure. Let’s do it. And let’s grab some more of that blue stuff while we’re out.”

“Oh dude, that goes without saying.”

“I gotta get a part from the cargohold.” He gathered his tools and put them back in his pack. “You done with the refabricator?”

Quill shrugged. “I guess. Unless you want to get around the sides today.”

“Nah, that’s easier when we’re in orbit.” He walked to the lip of the hull and stepped off, popping his aerorig a few feet before touching down. Nice. He glanced up, but Quill had missed it. Ah well. He stepped into the cargohold and found the locker with the spare emitter casings. Still had plenty left. He jetted back up to the top of the hull and locked the casing in place, giving it a couple light knocks. “We’re done here. Thanks for the help.”

“Sure.” Quill followed him off the edge again and slapped the hold access door. “Tell me you’ve got some crazy aquatic tech we can test.”

Rocket laughed. “Dude, when’s the last time we’ve had a mission on a water planet? No, I don’t have any crazy aquatic tech.”

“Aw, Rock. Please?” 

He refused to look at the other man. “I can hear your flarkging kicked puppy face. Not falling for it.”

Pete whimpered piteously, and Rocket sniggered. He showed Pete where to hang up the refabricator pack and they headed back through the corridors to their quarters. Quill, off to find his swimsuit, and Rocket to drop off his tools. As the belt hit the floor, Rocket glanced over at his chest of drawers, wondering if he should tell Pete about what had happened, but the goof hollered for him from the hall and he kept his mouth shut. They ran into Drax on the way back, who was carrying a slopping bowl of noodles and sipping the broth contentedly.

“Smells good, man.” Quill slapped him on the belly as they passed and the big guy didn’t even flinch.

“Yes it does.” He nodded, slurping up a few strands and smacking his lips. “I love the dehydrated mushrooms. Thank you for picking up provisions yesterday.”

“Eh, we were there.” Rocket shrugged uncomfortably. “Might have to make another run later if everyone keeps burning through our stores.”

“Relax, Rock. People gotta eat.” Quill flicked his ear and Rocket slapped his hand, glaring up at his stupid grin.

“Yeah, but do they gotta eat so much literally the day after we restock the fridge?” he complained.

Drax arched an eyebrow. “Gamora and the Asgardian mentioned you availed yourself of most of the fruit.”

He grimaced. “For one thing, people kept stealin’ ‘em, so I only ended up with like, three. And for another, Quill an’ me went outta pocket for this stuff! You and Gamora'd better put some units up for the next stock run. Angie too, if she keeps hanging around.”

Drax shrugged and passed more noodles into his mouth. “That would be fair.”

Quill held his arms out and grinned brightly. “Hey, what’s a few units between friends, right?” Under the cover of Drax’s gross slurping sounds, he whispered to Rocket: “Drop the units thing. I owe him like two thousand.”

“You owe me twenty-five hundred, you trug!” hissed Rocket back at him, but relented.

“Are you headed back into town?” asked Drax, evidently comfortable eating a bowl of noodles while standing in the middle of a narrow hallway.

“Sorta. Gonna check out that beach!” Quill rocked up on the balls of his feet, bouncing and smiling broadly. “Wanna come with? Get in that greenass water?”

Drax shook his head, spattering broth inches from Rocket’s paws. “I do not swim. My species has extremely high molecular density to begin with, and I have little body fat to aid in buoyancy. I would sink without some form of flotation device.”

“Not like bein’ dense hasn’t stopped you before,” muttered Rocket, and Pete kneed him in the side.

“Sounds like a serious issue, man,” Quill said with sympathy. “Remind me to get you some water wings next time we’re on Earth.”

“Thank you.” Drax slurped another endless helping of noodles and Rocket winced at the noise.

“But to be fair, you don’t have to even get in the water,” Quill pointed out. “You can just like look for cool stuff on the beach.”

“Or just find a place to park your keister and drink,” offered Rocket. 

“Or hang out with the locals—play some sand volleyball and flirt with some honeys.” 

“Yeah, or you could just drink.” Rocket spread his hands and arched his brows expectantly. ”

Drax furrowed his brow and thought, a noodle hanging limply from his lips. Quill was still grinning at the mental image of Drax in booty shorts trying to make conversation with hot insectoids, but it wasn’t something Rocket really wanted to picture. He nudged Quill’s knee with his elbow and jerked his head back towards the hold. Thankfully the half-Terran wasn’t a total idiot.

“Sure, uh, you think it over and meet us down there if you feel like it, yeah?” Quill clapped the other man’s massive shoulder and moved off. Drax’s affirmative grunt followed them down the hall.

“Ten credits says he doesn’t come,” muttered Rocket.

“I’ll take that.” Quill dropped his hand to ruffle Rocket’s head. “Easy money, dummy.”

“You keep betting against me,” Rocket said, swatting Pete’s hand away as they left the ship. “Wonder why you’re get twenty-five hundred credits in debt.”

“Psh, keep counting, furball. I’ll make it back one safe bet at a time.” They tramped down the hill, the warm, sweet smell of grass enveloping them. 

“Funny,” drawled Rocket. “That’s what you said eighteen hundred credits ago.” His foot caught in a thick patch and he tripped, panic hot and static in his throat. Quill’s hand slapped at his chest, stabilizing him. When he got over his initial shock, he wiggled loose and wiped his front down. 

Quill was smirking when he stole a glance. Stupid, smug human with his dumb chubby cheeks. 

“What?” he demanded.

Quill put out his hand. “I just saved your life. That’ll be twenty-five hundred credits, please.”

He slapped the hand down, sneering. “Yeah right, hero. You and I both know you don’t get squat for altruism.”

“It’s not really altruism if I’m getting paid, is it?” 

“I’m not payin’ you, trug!”

They had reached the bottom of the hill and started down the street, adopting an easy pace toward the seaside. There were lots of Aethrans out and about, skeins of metallic beads draped across their midsections, bronze carapaces flashing under the suns. The two guardians got a few curious glances, but no one seemed to want to interrupt the bickering. 

By the time the town gave way to black sanded dunes, they had settled into a comfortable back-and-forth, breaking regularly into snickers and cuffing each other on whatever they could reach. Rocket’s aches had ebbed away, and between the sunlight, the walking, and the company he was actually feeling relaxed. The surf was gentle, jade froth curling over the dark sand and sweeping out to a clear horizon. Aethrans and scattered aliens dozed on the strand and bobbed in the surf, but it wasn’t crowded by any means. 

They found a spot not far up the coast and dumped what little stuff they’d brought. Rocket pulled his communicator and the few other pieces of water-sensitive tech out of his pockets and stood for a minute, toying with a zipper on his jumpsuit. Probably wouldn’t be the most comfortable thing to swim in, but he didn’t really have anything else. And there was no glarkging way he was stripping down.

“Hope you swim better than you joke, short stuff. Otherwise I’ll have to save your sorry ass for the fifth time.” teased Quill, pulling his shirt up over his head. 

“Pretty sure it’d just be the second, you innumerate ass.” Rocket grinned, lazily eyeing the light sketching of hair that ran over Pete’s chest, thickening as it fell toward his waist. Then his head popped free, curly mop disheveled, and the human chucked his discarded shirt over Rocket’s snout. “Hey!”

“Can’t hear you over how great the water is.” Pete had wallowed in while Rocket tugged the shirt off his face, and he flopped fully into the brine with a loud splash. He surfaced spluttering and wiping his eyes.

“Graceful, Quill. Real elegant.” Rocket edged up to the surf, stepping tentatively into the wash. It was warm. 

He hid his relief with a put-upon scowl as he waded in deeper, out towards Pete, who had sunk down to his neck and was smiling blissfully up at the sky. He must be kneeling on the bottom, since the tips of Rocket’s claws could still brush sand when he tread over to his friend. The water seeped through his jumpsuit and slowly through his fur. It was a few degrees above his body temperature, and the gentle pressure around him was soothing. The saltwater stung a little around his explants, pricks at his spine and shoulder-blades that made him think absurdly of small fish threading through his fur, nibbling at the edges of the metal. It softened the aching at his ribs.

“Okay, for the record?” He arched his back and pulled himself up, chest and head afloat. “This was a good idea.”

“Thank you,” Quill murmured. “You should listen to me more often, Rock.”

Rocket smirked. “Mm, what was that? I wasn’t listening.”

“Trug.” He could hear the smile in his voice.

“I especially don’t listen to slander.” The current washed him back and forth gently, and the suns were warm on his face. He stretched out luxuriously, drawing his arms back and forth over the surface of the water, feeling swells gather and melt away against his claws.

“You okay, dude?” Quill’s voice was soft. He could feel waves from the other man’s movement rocking his side. 

“Mm. Tired.”

“Huh, sounds like someone should’ve, uh, slept in this morning, then.” Carefully casual.

“Maybe I would have if someone hadn’t been snoring like a Pleektorian slugboar.” It was out before he’d thought halfway through an honest response, and there was something hurt about Pete’s silence. He cleared his throat and dropped to treading water, blinking away the drowsy haze. “Sorry. Woke up with a skull-splitting headache. Needed caffeine and painkillers, and…I didn’t want to wake you.”

“Aw, that’s sweet.” Back to the teasing, playful tone. How did he do that so easily? It’d be admirable if it wasn’t so flarking frustrating. “Next time, then. If you’re less of a lightweight.”

He snorted, face hot. “I don’t think sleeping half the day away is much to aspire to.”

“Who said you had to be sleeping?” Quill’s smirk faltered and his ears reddened. “I mean, just wake up when you wake up. And—and if you wake up needing more sleep, just go back to sleep.”

“And if I don’t?” Rocket arched his brow.

Quill shrugged, flush spreading across his cheeks. “Then, you know—go do something. I don’t care.”

Rocket grinned, treading closer. “I dunno, Quill. Sounds like you do.” 

A larger swell buffeted them, the ebbtide pulling Rocket forward despite his half-hearted strokes away, and he felt his back paws graze Pete’s stomach. Quill winced and Rocket’s ears flicked back. Krutacking claws. He cursed and backtread with his arms furiously until the water was shallow enough for him to stagger out towards the pile of their things. He rooted through the stuff until he found the miniature medkit.

He heard footsteps on the sand behind him and rubbed at his eyes.

“Here, just—just stay there and I’ll fix it. I’m sorry I flarked everything up again, I—”

“Rock,” Pete’s hands on his shoulders, urging him gently to turn, so he did. Pete’s face close, blue eyes earnest. “It’s fine.”

Pete gestured to his stomach, at three red lines across the slight bulge of his beer chub. One bled, welling pinprick beads that streamed away with the seawater. “It’s nothing.”

Rocket shook his head, glaring. “It’s not—it’s stupid and we don’t know what’s in that water, and I—”

Pete rolled his eyes, hands passing up from Rocket’s shoulders to cradle his cheeks, and Rocket barely had time to register the sweet thrilling in his head from the intimate contact before Pete leaned in, lips pressing insistently, miraculously, against his. Rocket was vaguely conscious of making a thready mewl in the back of his throat before dropping the medkit and grabbing hold of the curly locks at the back of Quill’s head. He deepened the kiss carefully, tasting seawater on Pete’s lips, and breathing his scent in with a greedy elation. 

Pete kept grinning, lips pulling away, and Rocket pulled back to glare at him.

“What’re you stopping for, idiot?” he demanded, hands going to his hips.

Quill stood, brushing some grit off his knees and sidling back towards the water. The scratch marks had faded and the cut had stopped bleeding. “C’mon. I got another great idea.”

Rocket tried to look skeptical, but he kept smiling. “I guess I did say I’d listen more.”

He followed Pete into the surf, laughing as the other man’s strides turned into labored waddling, and getting a mock-glare in return.

“You look like you shit yourself again,” he pointed out.

Quill threw himself fully into the water, sending jade spume fanning out around him. “How ‘bout you shut up for once, furball? Get over here.”

Rocket shut up and swam over, using strokes he hoped looked purposeful rather than desperate. Quill held his shoulders, steadying him while he gently set his feet on Pete’s thighs, careful to get a layer of Pete’s swim trunks between his claws and the half-Terran’s flesh. Then Quill’s fingers tightened behind his back and they were kissing again, laughing and tugged this way and that by the green sea around them, but anchored to each other. 

Pete’s hands were everywhere, gentle but confident, exploring his muzzle, the back of his head, spanning his ribs, even trailing down his spine to cup his ass, catching the base of his tail with his thumb. All the while he managed to kiss with lingering attentiveness, lips parting now and then to moan softly. Rocket’s heart was hammering, his skin freezing in the wake of Pete’s touch. All he wanted was to be held tight and surrounded in the other man’s warmth, in his scent and in the soft sounds he was making now, just for him. A fierce protectiveness flared in his heart and he growled, pulling the back of Pete’s neck with one hand and cradling as much of his cheek as he could with the other. Pete’s lips pulled away in a smile again, but he came back quickly, stubby tongue questing at Rocket’s sharp teeth. 

He shivered, pulling back and turning his attention to Pete’s neck, licking a few beads of seawater away between kisses as he worked his way down the hollow between his collarbones towards a nipple. He could feel a tenseness in Quill’s fingers as he got closer, and grinned.

“All good, Pete?” he murmured against Quill’s skin, the fine curls of chesthair tickling his muzzle.

Pete nodded frantically, eyes fixed on him. “Mhm. Yup. Yup yup yup.”

Rocket sighed, letting his warm breath wash down and was slyly satisfied to see the nipple stiffen, goosebumps breaking out along Quill’s chest. “So…you’re good if I keep going?”

“Ugh, you have to be—” Quill raised his eyebrows seriously. “Later we’re gonna have a talk about the Golden Rule, because—”

He bit his lower lip as Rocket bent back to him, planting gentle kisses around the areola and flicking the hardened nipple with his narrow tongue. Then he opened wide, pressing the points of his teeth against the soft surrounding skin and lashing his tongue with more gusto. Quill’s hand at his tail slipped down, two fingers gently tracing over his suit down from his ass to graze the compressed lump of his ballsack. A shock ran up his spine, and he felt his face and neck heat. He cleared his throat, putting his hands to Quill’s chest and looking him full in the face while the other man massaged his balls. Quill was grinning broadly, blue eyes alight and cheeks flushed, silver droplets of seawater shivering in his facial hair.

“All good, Rock?” he mocked. Stars, he liked when Pete used his name.

Rocket grinned and shifted, curling his hips so Pete’s fingers were trailing along the course of his hardened dick. “Told you yesterday. I’m the best.” 

Although if Pete kept this up for much longer, Rocket’s knees were going to give out.

They kissed again, both having trouble keeping from smiling, and Rocket was deliriously happy. That thrilling in his head had broadened out into full song, and he felt like his heart had turned into a small sun, suffusing him with light and warmth. And he was with Pete, making him happy—they were here, with each other, enjoying their company and a mutual need for each other that had finally blossomed into action, and Rocket felt like he was floating. 

He was floating. And so was Pete. The realization struck them simultaneously, and just as suddenly they were falling—landing back in the water with a tremendous splash which Rocket would have found hilarious if he hadn’t just been sent into full-on panic mode.

The device was on the ship. The ship was a good four kilometers away. This wasn’t the device. This was him. 

“What the hell?” shouted Quill when he surfaced, eyes wide and darting in a face drained of color. “Are we under attack?”

Rocket coughed out a lungful of seawater, shaking his head. “I don’t think so.”

He scanned the coast for anything out of the ordinary, but it seemed like no one had even noticed their levitation incident. Flark. His heart was leaden, settling somewhere around his stomach, and he felt queasy. 

“Pete, I—I think it was me.” His own voice was muffled in his ears, and he dragged himself out of the water, stumbling back to their stuff.

“What? No way.” Quill followed, adjusting himself uncomfortably. His head looked weirdly round with his hair slicked down. “You’re not like…telekinetic, are you? I feel like we should have known by now.”

“I don’t—I didn’t think I was, but…is that possible?” He cocked his head. “Did Kitty talk about that stuff?”

Quill shrugged. “I don’t know. I think it generally shows around puberty though?”

Rocket snorted. “Yeah, that’s well-glarkging-behind me, thanks.”

“Okay, so…did you come into contact with something recently? That the rest of us weren’t exposed to?” Quill ruffled his hair, squeezing out the longer locks, and stepped into his sandals.

“Maybe,” he said, thinking back to the instrument. But how was that possible? He had standard isotope detection measures built into all of his loot compartments. He should have seen a reaction if there was some kind of radioactive shit going on. Maybe some kind of sonic encoding? Whatever it was, clearly the device shouldn’t be messed with until he had some answers.

“We should check your noodle, dude,” said Quill in what was an obviously forced cheerful tone. He pulled his shirt back on and took up the rest of his stuff. “You have baseline scans, right?”

“Right.” Rocket didn’t want to think about some flarking unknown fucking with his brain chemistry, but at least he could tell if something had changed. He wasn’t sure whether a negative result would even be comforting. “Maybe we should get back to Knowhere. When we’re done here.”

“Sure. Cosmo?” Quill was being careful, but Rocket could tell he’d noticed how shaken up this whole thing had gotten him. 

“Yeah.” Talking was getting harder and he could feel his focus narrowing. “Mutt’s at least got the tools for that kind of issue.”

“Good plan.” Pete dropped a hand to his shoulder and gave it a squeeze as they trekked over the dunes. “We’ll figure this out, bud.”

“Thanks,” he answered, brow knitting. “I know.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm really sorry about the gap in posting. Hit a block and then had some personal stuff, and then when I started up again it didn't feel right cutting for a chapter break for a long time. Anyway, thanks for hanging in there--really appreciate you guys!


	8. Diplomacy

They hiked the long slope through the town and up the hill back to the ship, not talking. The silence wriggled under Rocket’s skin, at times a thing that itched and bit between his shoulders, and at others quiescent but present—a dumb weight that he had trouble deciphering. He pretended not to notice when he felt Quill looking at him, sure he’d see something like pity there that would hurt, and in turn Quill didn’t seem to register the sidelong glances he couldn’t help from shooting over every few yards. The other man kept his face carefully composed, blue eyes fixated on the middle-distance, beads of seawater glassy and frozen on the pale skin of his jaw. His pulse was rapid, though, a shadow dancing along the smooth field of his throat, and his thumb was working overtime back and forth over his knuckles. Ugh. Too similar to be any good at this. Sooner or later one of them would find words. He grimaced and bet himself ten credits they’d be the wrong ones.

He scratched the back of his head, chewing the inside of his cheek. If it was him, which it looked like it was at this point, he might not be able to trust himself. His perceptions, his instincts—if this surprise telekinesis flark was linked with something else, it’d just be his luck that it’d grok with his brain. The hair at the back of his neck prickled. Would he even be able to tell if he had changed?

Don’t think about that. Can’t think about that. Maybe Pete’s instincts had been right for once—maybe it was just a, a dormant ability that had been triggered by…by what? He tried to remember what he’d heard about the X-men from Kitty, about the Inhumans and other humanoids and nonhumanoids that developed abilities beyond the baseline of their species, but he hadn’t retained a whole lot. Now that it might involve him, it was a whole lot more interesting. Trauma was a recurring theme in what he could remember. If he’d have had some, some secret power locked up in his DNA, why the flark hadn’t it been there for him with the Kree? Or the Shi’Ar? Or any of the krutacking messes he’d wound up in over the past decade? 

He wouldn’t admit it to anyone other than Groot, and even then probably only under the influence of a few potent drinks, but things had been relatively good lately. These past few years with the Guardians’d had their share of ups and galactic-imperiling downs, but he’d had a safe place to sleep and a strong team at his back. They weren’t exactly rolling in credits, but he hadn’t gone hungry in a long time. And as much as he loved Groot, it was nice to have people to talk to whose phonetic vocabularies exceeded three glarkging words. But trauma-wise? That flark was mostly just in his nightmares these days.

His mind slipped quickly and gratefully from the subject like two magnets of the same charge had been forced together and finally allowed to separate. So. Some kind of chemical induction? Nebulous floaty powers brought on by exposure to Grubtor spit or Aethran cuisine? Or was it something earlier that had only just kicked in? He should run a blood panel in addition to the brain scans.

Something brushed his side and he flinched, claws up before it registered that Pete had bumped him with a low-swinging hand, and his panic turned to guilt. He loosened up, hoping the human hadn’t noticed, letting himself drift closer to his friend. If Quill had noticed, he didn’t show it—his hand slipped casually, naturally, over Rocket’s shoulder, warmth sinking through the jumpsuit and somehow transforming the silence into something still and soft. 

Rocket sighed, unable to keep the plaintive whine down in his chest. Quill’s hand squeezed his shoulder.

“We’re gonna figure it out,” he murmured.

“I’m not a baby,” he snapped back, but gods did Pete’s voice sound sweet when it was low and soft like that.

“‘Course you’re not.” He could hear the smirk in Pete’s tone and rolled his eyes preemptively. “Too smelly for a baby.” 

Rocket bared his teeth up at the other man. “Kiss my glonords, Quill.”

Quill laughed and winked down at him. “Play your cards right, Rock. Maybe I will.”

Rocket cocked his head, neck burning. Oh yeah, he hadn’t imagined the making out. “I’m…the best at cards.” 

“Psh, you’re a glarkging cheat at cards is what you are.” Pete nudged him with his hip. “I know you get Groot to feed you everyone else’s hands.”

“Listen, that’s just sound strategy. You guys could do it too—” he protested, stumbling a little before coming back to shove at Pete’s thigh. “If ya bothered to listen to him.”

“Dude, you know we only understand him when he wants us to, right?” Quill swept a lazy foot out that Rocket hopped over with ease.

“Sure I know that.” His comprehension of Groot’s control over his…spores? pheromones? whatever…was a little fuzzy, but he knew the more time you spent with the big tree the better you were at deciphering his catchphrase. “So be more likable, Starflark.”

Quill snickered and when Rocket looked, his smirk was delectable. “Maybe you could give me some tips, huh? Tell me what to do?”

Rocket shot him back a grin of his own. “Play your cards right, Quill.”

To his delight, the half-Terran’s cheeks flooded red. They’d reached the steep hill again, and Rocket could scarcely believe that when he’d crossed this way last night he hadn’t even started with that floating shit. Some ten hours later and he was a budding telekinetic and he’d kissed Peter flarkging Quill. Pete had kissed him. They’d kissed. And Pete had felt up his ass? Crazy.

He had some catching up to do.

The wind gusted behind them, carrying the smell of brine. As capitals went, Aethra could’ve done worse. They’d probably screw it up before long, anyway, but at least it was nice now. He glanced over his shoulder at the jade sea, the black scrawling of sand that lined the coast, and the humble, glittering city beneath a smooth, smogless pink sky, and an ache grew in his throat. How many overcrowded, festering dumps had he been to that were once like this? How many dead worlds, blistered earth long devoid of even memories of vegetation? What could he possibly do in his lifetime to spare this planet, or any other, that fate? Nothin’. He could save the galaxy ten times, from eldritch Cancerverse monsters, from golden fanatics incapable of reasoning, from Thanos or Kree or the Badoon or any faction of crazy-and-armed-to-the-teeth that happened to think ‘hey, pain and oblivion for everyone sounds neat!’, but he’d never stop the slow crawl toward annihilation every da’st species that flattered themselves sentient seemed so determined to drag themselves down. 

“Hey.” Quill’s voice broke his chain of thought and he looked up. Quill jerked a thumb unnecessarily toward the gathering up by the ship. “Think they’d be down for a game or two?”

“Ugh.” Rocket put a hand up to shield his eyes from the glare of two suns off six sets of polished metal armor. “They ain’t lookin’ like they’re in a playing mood.”

Full battle regalia couldn’t be a good thing, but to be fair, he hadn’t seen many Asgardians in casual wear, like, ever. He recognized the brown-haired man from the dinner, and Angela with her winged helm and blazing hair was always easy to spot. The others seemed standard, stiff-posed and glowering beautifully, hair flowing in the breeze or braided tightly, flashing with gold and copper. One warrior’s hair cascaded over their shoulders, twisted locks gleaming green at the ends. As old-fashioned as their gear looked, the metallurgy and (ugh) magic involved in the forging made it krutacking strong. Energy swords, plasma maces, and even…was that a neural disruptor whip? Kinky. Weapons sat comfortably in their holsters, gleaming with the soft sheen of heavy use and careful upkeep.

“We miss the party?” called Quill cheerfully. They turned, expressions ranging from polite but terse smiles to disdainful glowers. “Tell me there’s some booze left.”

“Starlord.” Angela pushed to the forefront of the group, brow furrowed. “That meeting we discussed? Now would be a good time.”

He nodded, keeping his hands out and striding easily. Rocket kept pace, ears back but ready to spring into action if things went ass-up. This felt like a bust. He’d been through a few busts—on both sides—and this felt like a bust. 

“Sounds good. Let me get everyone together, and uh, we’ll talk.” Quill sauntered to the hold and opened it up, resting a hand on his hip and sweeping the other before him. “I’d like to get some actual pants on, too, if we have time.”

Angela quirked her lips. “Doesn’t sound like you. But yes, we have time for pants.”

“Peachy. You and the whole flarkball team can come aboard while you wait.” Rocket pointed at Angela’s squad. “They don’t touch anything. You don’t touch anything either, but especially they don’t touch anything.”

A stocky blond warrior snorted and Angela shot him a glare before giving Rocket a nod. “We will respect your vessel.”

“Such as it is,” mumbled the blond. 

Rocket sneered, claws itching, but Pete touched his shoulder and some of the anger bled off.

Angela rounded on the man, ribbons cracking. She pointed at the ground. “You stand guard, Lief. Out here.”

Lief scowled but didn’t argue, and the other Asgardians fell into line behind Angela. 

Pete sighed, erstwhile smile still plastered on, and leaned down. “Boy, I love official meetings.”

“Cheer up, bud,” muttered Rocket as they ducked into the hold. “Maybe it’ll devolve into a brawl.”

“There’s always hope.” Quill turned back to the demigods following them and directed them toward the central conference room. 

Rocket peeled off from the group with relief and took a deep lungful of air that wasn’t polluted with the humid proximity of strangers. Okay. Let’s get this over with.

He bolted through the halls, trying to keep the static flutters of panic down at the base of his gut where they were manageable. Diagnostics wouldn’t take long. Attach a few sensors here and there and sit a couple minutes for the scan, prick a finger and insert the sample into the outdated bioanalytics clunker that he’d been trying to get replaced for two years. Newer models would take a second, flashing the slide for spectrometry and spritzing with reactive chemicals, and spitting out a comprehensive panel that was accurate for most every carbon-based lifeform. This old one took five to ten minutes to process samples and wasn’t even reliable for nonmammalian blood equivalents. Luckily Groot hadn’t gotten sick or poisoned in a way that his regenerative abilities couldn’t handle yet, but he didn’t want to take that for granted.

He snorted at himself as he stepped into the medbay. Typical. Try not to think about the flarked up things that could be wrong with him by imagining horrible glarkg happening to the people he cared about. Good job, garbage brain. 

Most of the brain scan stuff was still out from Drax’s diagnostics the other day, so he turned the monitor on and prepped the equipment for the blood test while it warmed up. They were running low on test slides, too. Ugh, everywhere he looked they needed units. He hopped up on the medical table and placed the sensors, carefully sinking them in through his fur so they had as much skin contact as possible. It’d be easier to shave a few spots, but as long as he stayed still for the reading it’d have just as much accuracy with a lot less of the stupid-looking. Once they were all placed, he initiated the test and gazed up at the gunmetal blankness of the ceiling. 

Blank. Baseline scans were taken without pressure—when you were calm and comfortable and maybe laughing at a stupid joke Pete had told while he was waiting for his turn. Stress could artificially inflate any discrepancies. 

He looked down at his hands, black palms up and empty in his lap. Try as he could to clear his mind, his heart was thudding fearfully in his chest. He had to calm down. The last time he’d been calm…that perfect, drowsy softness when he’d woken up this morning, Pete warm and solid at his back.

He sighed. Pete’s arm slung casually, naturally over him, long fingers usually in goofy, frenetic motion lying quiescent on the mattress just inches away from his muzzle. The lazy urge to lean over and kiss his knuckles. The smell of him everywhere.

A tenseness between his shoulders loosened and he felt lighter. Working to stay in that gentle space, he felt the air cool around him, heard the slight crinkle of the sterile pad under him as he lifted off, floating unsteadily a couple inches over the table.

Rocket caught his breath, suppressing the stab of panic. This was good. Scanning during an…event…might illuminate the change. He doubled down on the fluffy feelings, summoning the slow grins, the incidental touches, the damnably intimate shock of unexpected eye contact that was invariably followed by a wash of heat. Watching Quill’s stupid dances, cheering each other on in a thousand meaningless drinking contests in dive bars he couldn’t remember, the quiet trust as Pete let Rocket patch him up after the occasional injury. He shivered, feeling self-conscious and raw, fur prickling along his spine. 

This was stupid—there was no reason why this would help at all, but he was still floating. He let out a shuddering breath, slowly extending his limbs and reaching up with his thoughts. He drifted upwards. 

He laughed in cynical disbelief, reaching out to a stack of clean bandage material on the nearby table and focusing on them. _Pull_ , he thought, to no effect. _Lift. Up. Come?_ Nothing. He twisted his mouth, but decided it was worth a shot anyway, and wanted them, stoking a bright spike of yearning from his center towards the carefully ordered pile of gauze and padding. The stack wobbled and fell towards him, spilling over the floor.

Well flarkg. He tried to mute his dismay, tried to stay calm and feel like descending gently back to the exam table, but he plummeted and hit the pad with a hip-jarring thump. A couple of sensors fell off and he scowled, removing the others. Great. Real glarkging convenient that whatever this thing was seemed connected to his da’st emotions.

He huffed irritably. That’d have to be enough for the scan. He tidied the sensor leads and took up the blood-collection slide, pressing it up to an ear and hissing as the needle deployed, punching through the skin with a chill bite. He pinched the site as he ran the slide, licking absently at the blood on his thumb when he was confident his ear had finished bleeding. Should only take a few minutes. 

“Hey, dude, c’mon. People are getting ansty.” Quill’s voice made him jump, and he glared over his shoulder. 

“Gimme a couple minutes.”

Pete’s eyes flicked from him to the diagnostic machines and narrowed. “You okay?”

“I’m trying to find out.”

Pete nodded, folding his arms as he walked closer. “I mean, I’m with you, man. One-hundred percent. But we’ve got five edgy Asgardians in the conference room, and I can only say ‘he’s taking a shit’ so many times before they get suspicious.”

“You told them I was taking a shit?” 

Pete’s ears reddened and he threw out his hands. “I figured you wouldn’t want me telling everyone about the floating and the brain stuff. I mean, it’s your business.”

“Fine, whatever. I’ll be right down.” He pointedly turned to the console.

“Rock—” Quill took a hesitant breath. “We can lock the door after us, but you’re not gonna have the time to analyze this stuff, much less process it, you know? You sure you want that hanging over your head during a meeting?”

Rocket tilted his head. There was a decent point in there, but he wasn’t gonna admit it. “Is it really an all-hands kind of thing? Angie’s a friend. How formal are we talkin’?”

“Not super formal. But I got the feeling that the others aren’t so well-disposed towards us as Angela.” Pete shuffled a couple steps closer and grinned sheepishly. “And I don’t really think it’s an ‘all-hands thing’, but considering you’re the brains of this operation, I think we need you there just about every time.”

Rocket did not preen. Rocket would not preen. But he allowed himself a self-satisfied smirk. “Well, when you put it that way, I guess this stuff ain’t goin’ anywhere.” 

Quill laughed a little and they left the medbay together. Rocket shot a last glance back to the blood panel console, but the screen was still dark. No point in worrying now. He’d have answers soon. Angela was fine, but it seemed like whenever the Guardians rubbed shoulders with the Asgardian faction, the magic jocks saw them as an amusement more than anything else. They probably wouldn’t have anything dire to impart, but they might have a lead on a job that they considered beneath them. 

They entered the conference room and Rocket snickered at the sight of the other Guardians and the Asgardians in full, glittering armor, squeezed in a rough ring around the center console. Groot and presumably Quill had dragged as many chairs, stools, and stool-sized items into the conference room, and everyone was seated to varying degrees of comfort, eyeing each other warily across the broad console table. There were two open seats between Groot and Drax, and Rocket plopped himself down next to the big tree without a word. Drax was crunching his way through a box of fried crickets, and the sound of his chewing put Rocket’s teeth on edge.

“So. Asgardians,” Gamora kicked her boots up on the console and folded her arms. “To what do we owe the honor?”

The man who had sat across from him last night, Grey…something. Greybal? Greyval. Leaned forward. “We have not been particularly forthcoming with you, Guardians, but once you understand our mission, we hope that you will appreciate the reason for our secrecy.”

Rocket shifted in his chair, grimacing. Even when they skipped the long-winded pedigrees, Asgardians seemed incapable of beating around the bush.

“Ages ago, when the All-father’s beard grew gold as sunlight, we became aware of an insidious power in the cosmos,” continued Greyval. “An entity that preyed upon those with advanced psionic abilities and brought devastation in its wake.”

“And being the proactive crusaders that you are, you waged war on it?” guessed Rocket. 

“This was in the early days of Heven’s rebellion,” answered Angela, nose wrinkled with distaste. “Asgard was…reluctant to extend its forces unnecessarily at the time.”

“Asgardians have high levels of psionic sensitivity, as a species,” said Greyval, frowning at Angela. “While our magic is not psionic in nature, telepathy is closely interwoven with our history and culture. The All-father was reasonably concerned that this racial trait would make our people vulnerable to incursions from the entity, if not ideal targets for possession.”

“Possession?” echoed Pete. “You mean—”

“I am Groot.” Groot’s bemused grin was accompanied by a rueful smell of flowers.

“Un-flarkging-believable,” groaned Rocket. “I can’t believe we’re getting dragged into Phoenix Force shit again.”

Angela shifted awkwardly on her upturned wastebasket. “We’re informing you as a courtesy. Asgard can handle its own affairs.”

“Then why involve us at all?” asked Pete. “Consult with Earth, or the Shi’ar if you need—”

“Asgard can handle its own affairs,” repeated Greyval loftily.

“If that were true you wouldn’t be out here, wouldja?” sneered Rocket, fur bristling. Smarmy flaknard, interrupting Pete. 

Greyval flushed and opened his mouth, but the slim warrior beside him, the one with the green-tipped braids, elbowed his shoulder and took over.

“The All-Father called upon the greatest sorcerers in the realm to devise safeguards against the Phoenix Force. He hoped to find a way of defending our entire territory, if possible. To create a sector of space into which the Phoenix Force could not enter, or even a weapon capable of destroying its essence.” They shrugged. “In the end, a prototype was developed, but never explicitly tested.”

Greyval’s pursed lips grew an increasingly close resemblance to a Blavoornian squif’s sphincter. “Gryff—The prototype was created in a collaboration between Heimdall, Frigga, and Bragi. A union of powerful magics that endowed an innocuous device with, it was hoped, the power to hold the Phoenix Force at bay.”

“So, could it?” asked Gamora, unimpressed. 

Some of the Asgardians made noncommittal noises. Others looked away. Greyval looked frustrated. 

“We don’t know.” Angela’s smile was wry. “The consensus was that if the Phoenix Force came for us, we’d have Bragi’s lyre as a defense; if it wasn’t interested in Asgard, there was no point in provoking it.”

“So you just left it laying around in case you needed it?” Pete was fighting a losing battle with an incredulous smirk. “Saved it for a cosmic rainy day?”

Gryff shook their head, a small smile spreading on their lips. “It was placed under guard in one of the palace’s secure vaults.”

“Which, naturally, made people think it was worth stealing.” Rocket wondered idly what else the Asgardians kept in their vaults.

“Evidently.” Gryff’s hands flew, tracing invisible starship paths. “We tracked the thief through three systems—wound up at the blackmarket here on the moon. Unfortunately, that Grubtor mess destroyed the blackmarket and we lost the thief’s trail.”

Oh flark.

Angela was looking at him, glowing eyes steady. “We searched the debris this afternoon. We found neither the thief’s corpse nor Bragi’s lyre.”

Greyval piped up again. “If your team saw anything while you were fighting the beasts, maybe picked something up that didn’t belong to you—”

“I don’t like your tone, there, Mister Mullet.” Pete stood, bracing his knuckles against the console surface, his eyes hard.

“Starlord, we don’t mean to accuse,” interjected Angela, sweeping a hand in Greyval’s direction dismissively. “Just hoping to pick up a new lead to replace the one we lost.”

“What does your lyre-thing look like?” asked Rocket, as casually as he could. “I, uh, confiscated some stuff from the market that seemed unusual. Was gonna cross-reference. See if any…cultural relics had been listed missing.”

The ghost of a smirk tugged at Angela’s lips. The other Guardians were poker-faced. Rocket’s less-than-legitimate scores had kept gas in the ship’s tank and food on the proverbial table when legitimate jobs were few and far between. They didn’t meet his fences or go out of their way to help off-load stuff, but they had his back. Gave him a warm, fuzzy feeling. 

The faces of the other Asgardians didn’t contribute so much in the warm-and-fuzzy-feeling department. Gryff looked mildly surprised, Greyval looked positively constipated with indignation, and the last warrior, whose name he didn’t know and didn’t care nearly enough to learn, had a scornful curl to her lip that begged to be ripped off. He leaned forward, bracing his palms against the cool smoothness of the console interface to drain the sudden swell of anger.

It didn’t work.

“You flaknards lose your magic kitsch, let the trug who took it get all the way out here and bring it to a thriving black market? And—by the way, just let me point out—you were glarkging lucky the Grubtor shit went down when it did, otherwise your little mind-shield woulda probably changed hands before you got here, and you’da been chasin’ their radsignature for the next ten systems.” He was snarling now, lips curling up to bare his sharp teeth, and he could feel the fur sticking up over his shoulders. “We got here first. We spent a day getting our hands dirty, riskin’ our necks and savin’ a bunch of idiots for free. So what if we pick up a few things on our way out? The point is, if it’s yours, I’m offerin’ to hand it over. If it’s not, you can flark off and keep lookin’. An’ take your sanctimonious crap with ya.”

His breath sounded overloud in the following silence. Groot quietly slid a couple tendrils to his back, pressing consolingly against his shoulderblades. He could see Gamora staring at him in his periphery, but didn’t turn to decipher her expression. The Asgardians were turning various shades of red, Greyval’s knuckles whitening as he gripped the console edge. Angela looked severe, a thundercloud on her brow. Drax kept munching his crickets.

“Okay.” Pete cleared his throat and grinned over at the Asgard team. “So, that’s our perspective. How are you guys doing?”

“We are emissaries of the All-Father himself,” bristled Greyval, rising from his seat and glaring at Quill. “You would do well to silence your ill-tempered pet before—”

Rocket jumped up on the table and was halfway across it before Groot threw some thick vines around his waist and arms, yanking him back to his seat. Everyone was up and shouting, postures growing more combative. Drax was grinning, rolling his shoulders in anticipation of a brawl. Pete’s ears were red and he was gesticulating widely, hands circling back unsubtly to the element guns at his waist.

“H O L D!” thundered Angela, her voice magically amplified and ribbons cracking in the air overhead. Everyone looked to her, the scene frozen with comic suddenness. The redhead did not look amused. She glared at Rocket for a moment, but turned the weight of her glowing eyes to the man at her side. “Join Lief outside.”

“He disrespected—”

“Respect is earned,” she said firmly. “If you want it, be worthy of it. Join Lief.”

Greyval sneered and took a step toward her, but when she didn’t give way, he thought better of it. He shot a withering glare to Rocket, who threw him a double bird, and stomped off down the nearest corridor.

“You are going the wrong way, rude Asgardian!” called Drax after him helpfully. 

Greyval came skulking back, neck flushed, and disappeared without a word down the correct corridor. Rocket suppressed the urge to yell something scathing after him, but settled for a brittle smirk. He didn’t trust his voice not to crack right now.

“I am Groot.” Groot leaned closer to him, concerned rumble vibrating his bones.

He shrugged. It was something you’d think he’d get used to after so long, but it never failed to get a rise out of him. He’d blow something up later. That’d make him feel better.

Angela nodded to the other remaining Asgardians and they sat gingerly.

“Rocket, on behalf of my compatriot, I apologize for the insult towards you,” she said stiffly. He knew her well enough to understand that her discomfort was more due to the angelic philosophy of equal trade that she’d been raised with than the fight that had nearly broken out. Her leadership of the other group obligated her to assume responsibility for Greyval’s infraction, shouldering his debt.

He didn’t owe her anything, but it would be easier to put this behind them if he played by her rules. “A finder’s fee would make up for the, ah, emotional damages.”

She nodded, stony expression softening with relief. “I believe a modest reward can be arranged for our friends who have safeguarded the lyre in our absence. Upon receipt, of course.”

He grinned, pushing back from the table. “Naturally. Be right back, Red.”

He trotted down the hall toward his quarters, eyeing the branching chambers warily in case that Greyval was even stupider than he’d looked. The smell of leather, hair spray, and that slight tang of ozone that meant Asgardian was fading, though, so maybe the trug had flarked off as ordered.

“Rocket, hey.” The metal flooring beneath his paws shuddered as Pete jogged up behind him. “Hold up.”

“Ain’t you supposed to be hanging around with the others? Showing an undivided front and all that?” Rocket slowed, though, moving to the side so Pete could walk with him.

“I wanted—are you okay?” Pete crossed his arms, then uncrossed them, tucking his thumbs in on his waistband and hunching his shoulders. 

“Fine.” His gut turned greasily. Don’t treat me different, don’t treat me different. “It happens. He was just lucky Groot was there to hold me back.”

“No, I meant—yeah, that was krutacking stupid, but I meant the—” He waved his arms and paddled the air with his hands. “The psychic shit. Are you okay to wait? Do you need me to wrap it up in there?”

He shook his head vigorously. He wanted to tell Pete how he needed to shove that down in the back of his skull, to push it away until they had a flarkging moment of peace, that it was an issue that didn’t belong right now, didn’t fit, but his teeth were gritted and he couldn’t unclench his jaw.

Pete shuffled at his side. “Okay, um. Do you need help right now?”

He shook his head again, jaw loosening up enough to rasp out a small “no”. 

Pete nodded. “Alright. Uh, do you want help, then? Anything I can do?”

Rocket barked out a laugh that was a little too ragged to come across as sincere. “I need this Asgardian glark done. Get ‘em off our ship and on their way. Then I can worry about…other stuff.”

Quill nodded again, holding a hand out hesitantly. “Sounds good. If you need the team—if you need me, for anything, I want to be there for you.”

“I know,” he said, looking away from the round earnestness of the other man’s eyes, but reaching up to put his hand in Quill’s, soft gratitude aching in his chest. Quill smiled, bending over to plant a quick kiss over Rocket’s knuckles. Rocket rolled his eyes and snatched his hand away, but his neck felt hot and his heart fluttered in his chest.

“Dummy,” he muttered.

Pete winked. “You love it. See you back there.” He gave a little self-conscious wave and headed back the way he’d come. 

“See ya,” mumbled Rocket under his breath, watching his friend go. Then, shaking his head, he continued on, unlocking his compartment door and slipping in. He sealed the door behind him in case of other tagalongs, and set about exposing his emergency hatch again. He hauled open the heavy lid and stared down at the familiar contents. Had the device been moved? No, that would be stupid. It sat there, dumb, silvery strings glimmering in the low light, but he couldn’t dismiss the feeling that it had been rotated slightly from the way he’d set it down.

He growled, shaking his head. Idiot. Nothing else had been moved and he couldn’t smell anything weird. It’s fine.

Rocket snatched the instrument from its spot atop a folded suit of armor and cradled it under his arm as he resecured the hatch. The smooth wood felt soft against his fur, and the weight of it was comforting. The thought that it could just be a regular stringed instrument popped into his head, and he found himself hoping that it was, and that he could keep it. He brushed the strings with the tip of a claw, and the sweet chime shot through his heart. Nah, the galaxy didn’t work like that. 

He put his palm over the strings to mute them as he carried the small instrument back into the awkward murmured conversation of the conference room. The chatter stopped when he hopped up on his chair and placed the small wooden hull down in the center of the console table. The other Guardians looked on with curiosity, but the Asgardians seemed to relax.

“This what you guys’ve been looking for?” he gestured at it dismissively, already knowing the answer.

The blonde warrior reached out, stroking the rim of the instrument with two reverent fingers. “This is Bargi’s lyre. Carved from the side of the World Tree and strung with sinew from the Four Stags of the wind. Can you smell the magics woven by old gods in their prime?”

“I’m smellin’ something, but it’s probably just the crickets disagreeing with Drax.” Rocket rapped on the table surface with his knuckles. “So. Finder’s fee, Angie? What’re we thinking?”

She grinned wolfishly. “Four thousand units for your fine stewardship. Another four if you accompany us to Asgard. We seem to have been attracting Starjackers with every jump and the slaughter is becoming monotonous.”

Rocket grinned back, glancing to the others. Drax and Gamora were sitting up and smiling wide, and Pete was having trouble keeping a straight face. Eight thousand units wouldn’t change their lives or alleviate all their financial concerns, but it would put them out of mind for a while. It’d actually go a long way toward rehauling the wiring and weapons systems, which were laughably outdated. He could stomach spending more time with Angela’s thick-skulled entourage if there was a nice pile of units in his future. 

Pete smoothed his curly hair back with one hand, deliberately casual, and reached over the table with the other. “You got a deal. Thanks for cutting us in.”

She smirked, looking down at his hand and keeping her arms crossed. “Nothing for nothing, Starlord. Your team is good to have in a pinch.”

“You know, you could always just ask,” Gamora pointed out, arching an eyebrow with an affectionate smile.

Angela blushed. “I don’t…I don’t work that way.”

“A creed is important to guide one’s life,” mused Drax, tipping the box of crickets up to his lips to catch the last crumbs. “Aimlessness in beings as powerful as we often ends in disaster.”

“Good thing we just drink in our downtime.” Pete drummed his fingers on the console and pulled back, propping his feet up and linking his hands behind his head. “So. Are we done with the serious stuff? Wanna go out and get flarked up? The music on this planet is hilarious.”

Angela twisted her mouth to the side and the other Asgardians frowned.

“We had hoped to travel home as soon as possible,” said Gryff, scratching their chin. “Would your team be averse to leaving immediately?”

An automatic chorus of distasteful groans arose from the Guardian’s side of the table, and Gryff laughed a little, putting their hands up in surrender.

“In the morning, then?”

Rocket shrugged and the others nodded with varying but decidedly low levels of enthusiasm. With the possible exception of Groot, none of the Guardians were what you could call early risers. The Asgardians stood, filing awkwardly out from around the table, and waited to be led out. Groot drew himself up, the topmost sprigs on his head brushing the ceiling, and swept an arm graciously forward to the exit corridor. Discreet flowers speckled his chest and shoulders, starry blue dots trailing down his waist.

“I am Groot,” he intoned in a velvety rumble.Rocket rolled his eyes. Groot was a sucker for buff, pretty things in flashy armor. The blonde seemed nonplussed, but judging by the way Gryff grinned and ducked their head, the gesture wasn’t a complete failure. 

“Angela.” Gamora cleared her throat, sauntering after the redhead with a completely transparent smirk. “Maybe we could discuss some…tactics.”

“Sheesh, is everybody around here trying to fuck?” Pete pushed away from the table and flashed a shit-eating grin down to Rocket. “Paging Doctor Rocket. Doctor Rocket to the medbay.”

Rocket glared. “Need your mouth sewn shut, nurse moron?”

“Why are you going to the medbay?” asked Drax.

“Because we are professionals, Drax,” said Quill breezily. “Gotta check the equipment before knowingly jumping into battle.”

Drax nodded, setting the empty cricket box down on the console and rolling his shoulders. “I should sharpen my blades.”

“Have fun, Draxie.” Rocket jumped down from his stool and stumped off down the corridor that led toward medbay, pushing away the flutterings of apprehension that suddenly unsettled his gut. Get it over with—just get it over with and use the rest of the night to recenter. Or, he watched the careless shuffle of Pete’s ass ahead of him with more than a little interest. Maybe they could pick up where they’d left off in the water. 

He wasn’t ready for answers, anyway. Maybe it was fine, maybe he could just learn to control it. He could figure out most anything—just had to be careful about it.

His stomach clenched painfully as they got closer, and he cleared his throat, laughing a little. “Y’know, maybe I should hold off ’til morning with, ah, with those results.”

Quill turned, a coppery eyebrow raised. “Yeah?”

Rocket rubbed the back of his neck, sauntering back a couple steps. “Yeah, I mean, it’s not like they’re gonna change, and, uh, maybe it’d be better lookin’ at it after some sleep.”

Pete wasn’t the smartest, but he wasn’t stupid by a long shot, and his eyes softened. “Makes sense. If you change your mind, I’ll be happy to tag along. I don’t, uh, know much brain stuff, but if it helps to have someone to bounce stuff off of, I’m your dude.”

The light filtering in from behind his head made the stubble on his round cheeks look soft, glowing. Rocket’s fingers twitched, and he remembered how warm the flushed skin had felt just hours ago. A desperation swelled in his chest and he flicked his ears back, gaze sliding to the floor. “If you’re done with the sappy flark, let’s move this party to your quarters, yeah?”

Quill put a mock-affronted hand to his chest and gasped softly. “How forward! Why sir, I suspect your intentions are impure.”

Rocket leaned forward, baring his teeth in a grin. “Baby boo, they don’t have words for my intentions towards you.”

“Oh.” To his delight, Quill’s expression froze and the half-Terran turned red. “That was good. More of that, please.”

Rocket laughed, reaching up to hook a claw in Pete’s waistband and tugging him a step closer. “I might. If you’re good.”

Pete’s pupils had blown out into jet pools and his nostrils were flaring in shallow breaths. Rocket could practically smell his arousal, and the prospect of stripping away Quill’s bullshit and teasing him into a trembling, blushing, blissful mess was suddenly the only thing he had ever wanted.

“So what’s the deal?” He cocked his head. “We gonna fuck?”

Pete nodded rapidly, smile spreading, and held out a hand. “Dude, I’ve been wanting to ask you that for years.”

Rocket snorted, taking his hand and marveling at the squishiness of Pete’s palm. His own hands were thickly padded with callouses and the pale scoring of scars. Pete’s hand was warm and soft and closed around his with a gentle pressure that had all the perfection of a polished ball joint sliding into a frictionless socket. 

He huffed, starting down the corridor and leading Pete after him. “Well, you should have. Now we gotta flarkging make up for all that time on top of getting up early in the morning. You’re gonna be the death of me, Quill.”

Pete laughed, speeding up to walk by his side. “You kidding me, Rock? Who’s the guy whose saved your furry little keister five times?”

“What—what is it with five?” Rocket grinned at him sidelong. “I don’t know how you’re turning one fluke into—”

“Fluke?!” echoed Pete, eyes wide, mouth falling open. “You’re calling that time on Faldoori-7 a fluke?”

“Faldoori-7?” Rocket cackled, throwing his head back. “You flew in through the window and knocked yourself out on the opposite wall!”

“Technically correct, but it totally distracted the empress’s guards from skewering you.” Pete smirked in a self-satisfied way. “You’re welcome.”

“Uh, they were never gonna touch me, moron, I had a plan.” 

Quill rolled his eyes. “You always say that.”

“Because I always have a plan!”

They passed through the empty meeting room, bickering comfortably, and Rocket found himself looking forward to the job tomorrow. Blasting a few Starjackers looking to haul over some innocent folks would feel a lot better than stamping out a litter of Grubtor that had just had the bad luck to have fallen into the hands of an idiot and been brought to the wrong place. Plus, they usually had an eclectic haul of loot aboard their patchwork raiders. Not as much potential for the sundry as a blackmarket, but the weapons would be a lot more vicious, and if they had time it’d be worth looking into siphoning fuel. Intrajump navigation required enormous reserves, and if this group wasn’t stupid, they’d have upwards of 5000 kilos stowed away on their primary vessel. 

Pete squeezed his hand and he returned the favor, careful to not press his claws too hard against the human’s thin skin. He swallowed, trying not to imagine raking his finger’s down Pete’s back, tracing white lines of pressure over the other man’s ass, cupping his balls in his palm and tasting the electric anticipation in Pete’s sweat. Don’t ruin this with expectation.

They reached the doors to Pete’s quarters, and Quill looked at him, brows knit.

“You sure you want this now? I mean, you’re not just avoiding—”

Rocket rolled his eyes and grabbed Pete’s shirtfront, pulling him down and kissing him quickly. Pete’s lips pulled away as he grinned, and then his arms were around Rocket’s shoulders, one hand behind his neck and one firm at his side, and Rocket felt the smooth slide of the other man’s muscles as he was hefted into the air. Quill bumped the door access with his hip and carried him in, planting soft, deliberate kisses along Rocket’s muzzle. Rocket shivered, lifting his chin and letting Quill nuzzle the softer fur at his throat. He was barely aware of the pressurized hiss as the door closed behind them.

“Put me down,” he breathed into Quill’s ear. “And get your flarkging clothes off.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I don't know how to cut a chapter and gave you guys this monstrosity. If it helps, the next chapter should be up very soon! Thanks for hanging in there, all.


	9. Barry White

Quill set him down gently on the bed, grinning. He took a few steps back, pulling his shirt off with a languid shrug, stretching his arms up and arching his back so that the low light played flatteringly off of his skin, glinting golden in the uneven sketching of hair trailing down his chest, over the slight suggestions of muscle beneath his beer chub and under the frayed waistline of his pants. He tossed the shirt away and winked, tucking his thumbs into his pockets and tugging his pants lower so that Rocket could see the path of hair darken and the shallow lines of his hips narrowing. Rocket took it in, hungry gaze devouring every inch of exposed skin, but didn’t want to seem too desperate.

He smirked, folding his arms. “Nice show. You do this for everyone you wanna tap, or what?”

Quill scowled. “Just the ones I like. Trug.”

Rocket snickered, pulling off his knee- and elbowpads and throwing them aside. “You got shit taste, Quill, but you’re pretty cute.”

Pete snorted, going to the back of the room and fiddling with his music console. “Listen, I’m a man of discerning taste. And a rockin’ butt. And you are going to have to deal with that.”

Rocket cocked his head, eyeing the aforementioned butt. “In all honesty, I’m looking forward to it.”

“Was that so hard?” Quill shot him a grin over his shoulder, still messing with the screen. “I knew you could play nice.”

Rocket grunted, pulling his boots off and dropping them over the side of the bed. Looking around the room, he noticed that things were a lot cleaner than they had been that morning. Pete had tidied for him. The guy could be real sweet. Sweeter than he deserved.

“One of the…very few things I’m not great with,” he said, longing for the distance between them to close, for words to give way to the contact that was so much simpler, so much easier. “But I’m working on it.”

Pete’s eyes were sad when he turned again, and his shoulders were tensed, but he had that rare honest, crooked smile that always managed to touch Rocket’s heart. The song he’d picked came in low and soft, guitar notes sweet and liquid through the speakers. 

“Well,” he said carefully, coming to the end of the bed and reaching out, cradling Rocket’s cheek with a gentle hand. “If it’s like anything else you do, you’ll be an expert in no time.”

Rocket laughed, putting a hand over Quill’s. “Probably. Long as you’re in my corner giving me tips.”

Pete grinned, leaning in and kissing him slow and sweet. “As if you could get rid of me.”

Rocket closed his eyes and went up on the tips of his toes, passing his hands through the curls at the back of Pete’s neck, resting his thumbs at the hollows of his jaw. Pete’s free hand went to his side, palm pressing, urging him to move back. Rocket obliged, stepping gingerly over the twisted sheets, tail twitching for balance as the mattress shuddered beneath Quill’s knees. Pete crawled forward with surprising grace, thumb sweeping tenderly over Rocket’s cheek. Rocket deepened the kiss, gently taking Pete’s lower lip between his teeth and pulling. Pete let out a little whine and slid his hand at Rocket’s cheek down the front of his chest, fingers imploring the zipper of his jumpsuit. Rocket’s breath caught in the back of his throat and Pete pulled away.

“You okay?” His warm breath puffed against Rocket’s muzzle, tickling his whiskers.

“Yeah, um.” He cleared his throat and shook his head. “Just…don’t laugh.”

Pete’s face went through a few rapid-fire expressions—Rocket caught confusion, anger, and sympathy before the half-Terran leaned in again, planting a kiss between his brows. The tenderness of the gesture made Rocket’s throat swell, and he ducked his head, embarrassed. 

“I’m not gonna laugh,” said Quill. “Unless, you know, you have any outstandingly stupid tattoo. Then I reserve the right to mock you viciously.”

“Psh, you’re one to talk.” Rocket tamped the sudden anxiety down and unzipped his jumpsuit, shucking it off without ceremony. “After that monstrosity me an’ Gam had to talk you out of back on Knowhere? Y’got no right to judge anyone’s ink.”

Quill rolled his eyes, ears reddening, and swept the discarded jumpsuit off the bed with the back of his hand. “Just because you guys aren’t cool enough to rock a holographic rendering of Skeletor doesn’t mean you should take a crap all over my dreams. I’m still mad about that, by the way.”

He was stealing a few peeks, eyes flicking down to take in the dull metal explants sunk into the fur at Rocket’s collarbones and sternum, the small studs at his hips and the rumpled tracks where the fur was interrupted by scar tissue that hadn’t fully healed. To Quill’s credit he didn’t look disgusted and wasn’t really ogling, but Rocket felt a little uncomfortable anyway. He swung his tail over his front and pretended to pick sand out of his fur nonchalantly.

“You’ll thank us when you stop being a da’st idiot, trust me.”

“Well, don’t hold your breath,” huffed Quill, sensing his discomfort and rolling onto his back, shimmying out of his pants. His underwear was a lurid green, patterned with stylized lizard-things that leered unpleasantly. 

“Flarkging hells, Quill,” said Rocket, helpless to prevent his voice from rising an octave in incredulity. “Why?”

Quill grinned and shrugged. “I get to go through my day knowing that I have ridiculous boxers on and no one else will have any idea.”

“And now you’ve made me an accomplice to your terrible crime,” laughed Rocket, reaching across and tracing a claw over Pete’s belly, picking at the rumpled waistline of the awful undershorts. Pete flushed and shifted his thighs, sliding a hand over shyly to move Rocket’s tail aside. 

Rocket’s heart was pounding, and he could feel himself getting hard. Judging by the garish green tent at Pete’s crotch, the feeling was mutual.

“Is there anything…I should know? Before we start?” murmured Pete, meeting Rocket’s eyes steadily. “Preferences? Boundaries?”

“Don’t touch the metal,” said Rocket automatically, more than a little transfixed by the eye contact. He felt like he should look away, but he couldn’t. “Don’t pin me down.”

Pete nodded, breathing quickly. “Got it. Um. Talk to me—let me know what works, what doesn’t. We’ve been dancing around this for so long, and I just…don’t want to mess it up, you know?”

Rocket laughed. “Sorry, ah, I appreciate this heart-to-heart and all, but I can’t keep staring at those krutacking lizards.”

“Well,” grinned Quill, raising his eyebrows. “I better get rid of them, then.”

Rocket settled back against the pillows, watching attentively as Pete worked his last article of clothing off over his hips. Not bad. Thicker than most of the humanoids he’d been with, but not big enough to be alarming. Circumsized, the head flushed as rosy as Pete’s cheeks. His pubic hair was a golden nest. He bit his tongue, wanting to jump over and give Quill the sloppiest, filthiest blowjob of his life and get the scent of him permanently ingrained into his fur. But he had to be cool.

Quill’s shit-eating smirk told him he was less than successful.

“See something you like, Rock?”

“I dunno,” Rocket stretched and shuffled over lazily as Pete backed up and spread his legs. “Should probably take a closer look.”

Pete laughed, hands fidgeting at the sheets. He was nervous.

“Is it the teeth?” asked Rocket, searching his face. “It’s the teeth, isn’t it?”

“A little,” allowed Pete, grinning sheepishly. “I mean, it’s kinda hot but also…sorry.”

“I’ve done it before, man. You don’t have to worry.” Rocket sat back on his haunches and winked. “I’m the best at blowjobs.”

Pete laughed, those cute little dimples pocking his cheeks.

Rocket held out his left hand. “Gimme a squeeze if you want me to stop?”

Pete took it, nodding, and Rocket stepped up on his thighs to give him a few quick kisses. His mustache tickled the fine hairs of his muzzle and when they pulled apart they were both laughing a little, tension relieved. 

“Okay, Starnerd,” drawled Rocket as low and gravelly as he could manage, working his way back over Pete’s chest and stomach, grazing kisses as he went. “Try not to cum too quickly.”

Pete shivered under him. He could feel the other man’s erection parting the fur at his stomach and pressing up to his chest. He slid back as smoothly as he could on his knees and one hand, lifting his head to look at Pete as the other man’s dick slipped up along his throat, next to his face. Pete’s eyes were wide, lips parted with anticipation, and Rocket grinned. He turned, adjusting his knees so that he was comfortable, and licked the pads on his right hand to soften the callouses.

He blew softly over the head of Pete’s dick as he gripped close to the base, careful to keep his claws away from the sensitive skin. He started sliding his hand up and down Pete’s length, keeping it simple to start. Once he’d gotten a solid rhythm going, he started modulating pressure, rippling his fingers as he went. Pete’s thighs tensed, hips twitching slightly with need. Rocket bent over his crotch, licking a delicate ring around the tip of Quill’s head, then again with more roughness, exhaling a steady breath of warmth. His ears twitched at a soft sigh from Quill, but the other man’s grip was loose and comfortable.

Okay. He sped up with his hand, licking his lips before kissing just below the glans, following up the light kiss with a full, wet lick, then taking the soft tip into his mouth, curling his tongue around it as best he could as he started to bob, alternating closed, sucking dips with sloppy gasps that rushed cool air around the slick sides of Quill’s dick. Quill was saying something under his breath, babbling just below the level of Rocket’s ability to decipher. He shot a look up, and the reverent expression on Pete’s face, neck arched and eyes closed, sent a wave of heat up his spine. He took Pete in deeper, feeling his head press against the back of his throat, lashing his tongue in heavy sweeps as he pulled up.

Pete tasted good. Salt and sweat and skin and a nice little cocktail of pheromones that added up to happily horny. He was making some pretty sweet sounds, too—soft, vulnerable cries interspersed with deeper, strangled moans. His thick thighs tightened around Rocket, and his free hand stole down, fingers sinking into the dense fur at the back of Rocket’s neck.

Rocket hummed, pressing his face deep into Pete’s crotch and huffing. Pete’s hand drew up, gentle over the knot at the back of his head, to trace an ear with a trembling finger. It tickled, and Rocket had to concentrate to keep his lips from sliding away from his teeth. Pete’s hand in his twitched, but he didn’t squeeze.

“Rock, you…mouthy motherfucker,” sighed Quill. “That—that is really good.”

Rocket disengaged with a deliberately obscene slurp, flashing Pete a grin. “Obviously not, if you can still speak.”

Quill was perspiring lightly, chest heaving. His lips worked, intermittently resolving into a contented smile. “H-have you met me? I’d still be talking if…if I was comatose.”

Rocket needed to kiss him. He gave Pete’s dick a last few strokes and hopped up on the other man’s chest, kissing at the corners of his smile and across those beautiful chubby cheeks. Pete laughed and embraced him loosely, shifting so that Rocket was under him and putting one arm up on the bed frame so Rocket wouldn’t feel crowded. They kissed again, Pete’s tongue slipping into Rocket’s mouth and gliding alongside his so he could taste himself. Rocket felt dizzy, something warm and golden bursting in his chest.

“Can I do you? I wanna do you.” Pete raised his eyebrows questioningly, a hand passing over Rocket’s chest and stomach, finding his dick unsheathed and teasing it with deft fingers.

Rocket grinned, arching his back to press more fully into Quill’s hand. “Show me what that pretty mouth can do.”

Quill blew him a kiss and then ran the hot broad slickness of his tongue down his dick and Rocket balled his fists up in the sheets to keep from cumming at the wet shock of it. If Pete noticed, he didn’t gloat—pursing his soft lips and pressing Rocket’s tip between them. He caressed Rocket’s balls gently as the tip of his tongue slipped up and down his length.

Rocket let out a shuddering sigh and relaxed into the pillows, putting a hand in the thick curls of Pete’s hair as the other man slid him fully into the wonderful warmth and softness of his mouth. He was simultaneously deliciously drowsy and more awake than he’d ever been in his whole life, and he wasn’t surprised to see the bed float away beneath them.

“I’m good. This is good. You’re amazing,” he said in response to Quill’s look of concern, and whimpered a little as Quill resumed sucking him off. He opened himself to the sunny, boundless feeling, and they revolved slowly in midair. Quill’s sheets lifted up, too—trailing in lazy orbit around them. He was distantly aware of the little knickknacks around the room rising into the air as well, but the constant downward pressure and the fall of Pete’s hair meant that the ship’s artificial gravity hadn’t malfunctioned.

Pete started fluttering his tongue up and down his dick and his hips started to twitch. He had the urge to grab two fistfuls of Pete’s golden-brown mop and ride his perfect mouth until he’d spent himself, but he’d meant it when he’d said they had catching up to do. Didn’t want to end this so soon, or even at all. 

He cleared his throat and reached down, cupping Quill’s cheeks in his hands and lifting his head. He drifted slightly lower, bending down the rest of the way to kiss Quill. The taste of himself on Pete’s lips was intoxicating, as was the elated light burning in the other man’s eyes.

“Dude, I don’t know how you’re doing it, but this is so cool,” he whispered, grinning.

Rocket returned the expression and put his hands to Quill’s shoulders. “I’m gonna try to put us back down, but, uh…be ready to drop just in case.”

Quill nodded and tensed his legs. His movements were slow, as if he were underwater, and Rocket silently admired the grace, the way the light cradled his calves and thighs. When Quill looked ready, Rocket bent his thoughts to the bed, stoking the yearning to be back on the soft mattress, surrounded by its familiar scent and feeling Quill firm and warm against him.

They descended a little heavier than he’d meant to, landing with a thump on the bed and eliciting nervous laughs from both of them. The sheets fell with them, and a chorus of pattering around the room signified the return-to-groundedness of Quill’s trinkets.

“Not your roughest landing,” said Pete, scooting closer and planting a quick kiss behind Rocket’s ear. “Think you’re starting to get a handle on it?”

Rocket elbowed his shoulder, pretending to be irritated by the peck, but his heart fluttered. “Hope so. Also shut up. Ya got any lube?”

Quill arched an eyebrow. “You kidding me? I have a shitload of lube. Half my budget goes to lube. I got stuff that warms, stuff that cools, stuff that smells like ginger and makes you sensitive as hell, and I got stuff that’ll turn your junk orange for a week.”

“Why would you even—”

“‘You got any lube?’” mocked Quill as he leaned over the edge of the bed and searched through his bedside table. “Did Picasso have paint?”

“Yeah, if that’s an Earth thing I’m not gonna get it, man.” Rocket watched in amusement as Quill muttered to himself, rummaging through a disorganized drawerful of bottles, vials, and jars. He found what he was looking for after a minute and came back up with a triumphant grin, popping the top with his thumb.

“You or me?” he asked, squirting a blob of pale violet gel into his palm.

“Me.” Rocket nodded when Quill raised his eyebrows, and the other man spread the lube around his hands a little before leaning in and caressing Rocket’s dick. Rocket bit his lip at the cold shock of the gel, but after the initial contact, the chill was actually pleasant, accompanied by a low tingling that intensified as Quill stroked.

“How’s it feel?”

“Fine. Good.” Rocket shooed him off and pointed to the head of the bed. “Get over there. Facedown.”

Quill grinned, gathering the remainder from between his fingers and reaching beneath himself. “I thought I was the leader.”

Rocket scowled. “You’re the mascot, Stardork. I gotta repeat myself?”

Quill shook his head and laid down carefully, folding his arms over his head. His butt was round and freckled, and Rocket slapped it lightly, enjoying the taut reverberation of Pete’s skin.

Pete snorted and Rocket slapped again, harder.

“How’s that, Quill?”

“Nice. You can hit a little harder—I like when it stings.” Pete shook his hips a little and Rocket half-laughed.

“Listen, trug, I’ll slap your ass as hard as I want. That clear?” he waited for Pete’s affirmative grunt, suppressing the thrill at the anticipation in the other man’s tone, and slapped his full ass hard. Pete sucked in a hissing breath and rocked back, knees sinking deeper into the mattress.

Rocket eyed the fading handprint and decided to make it symmetrical. He slapped the other cheek with the same strength and rubbed firm circles at the base of Pete’s spine with his free hand. The tingling felt good, but it was amplifying his need to be inside Pete, like an itch that he knew would be relieved with a solid scratch, and yet prolonging the wait would make that relief a hundred times sweeter. He breathed out, massaging Pete’s back with firm, steady pressure, pausing now and then to smack his ass with gradually more force until Pete cried out, half-laughing.

“You want me to fuck you, Pete?” he asked, spreading Pete’s cheeks and teasing his dick slowly along the other man’s taint. “You ready to get fucked?”

“Oh yeah. Hurry up and fuck me, Rock.” Pete angled his pelvis, trying to line up with Rocket’s cock.

Rocket scoffed, leaning away and giving himself a few lazy strokes, getting lube over his hands. “Doesn’t sound like you deserve it. I dunno if I can dick you down. In full conscience, you know.”

“C’mon, man.” He could hear the smile in Pete’s voice. “I need it. I need you.”

Rocket sighed and trailed a claw down from the base of Pete’s spine towards his asshole. “See, I don’t know if you really mean it. I want you to mean it. Otherwise—” he slapped Pete’s ass again with his off hand and curled his forefinger against his palm, pressing his knuckle against Pete’s hole. “I’d feel insulted.”

Pete pushed against his hand, breathing in sharply. “I mean it, Rock. I want—I want to feel you. Inside me.”

“Yeah?” Rocket cocked his head, grinding his knuckle further and cradling Quill’s balls with the other hand. 

“Mhm,” breathed Pete unsteadily. “I want you to fuck me hard and cum inside me.”

Da’st did Quill sound hot like this, wound up and panting with expectation. Rocket patted his ass affectionately and spread his cheeks again, canting his hips up for a better angle. “Okay. I’m convinced.”

He eased in as slowly as he could, breathing shallow through his nose, the tingling around his dick driving him crazy. Pete was tight around him, tight and smooth and hot and perfect, and he couldn’t help from moaning as he buried himself fully.

“You good?” he asked softly.

Quill sighed with satisfaction and nodded into the pillows. Rocket grinned and pulled halfway out, sliding back in a little faster than the first time.

“Good,” he said. “And I’m only telling you now—” he pumped again, steady. “Because you’ll be making too much noise to hear later, but—” Again. “You got a fantastic ass, Quill.”

He was building up to an even rhythm, now, and Pete was starting to rock with him, soft vocalizations growing louder. The tingle seemed to intensify into a low-grade vibration and the slight chill turned to a flush of heat that made the breath catch in Rocket’s throat.

“H-Rock,” moaned Quill, turning his face to the side and the tender sound of his name and the sight of the other man’s flushed cheeks was almost enough to finish him right then and there. He shook his head, knowing he’d never hear the end of it if he came this quickly, and pinched Quill’s ass sharply, earning a pleased yelp. Pete’s long fingers were white-knuckled, sunk desperately into the soft pillows, and Rocket could feel the mattress trembling in time with his knees.

He switched up his rhythm, trying to match the beat and downbeat of the song that was playing, driving as deep as he could. Quill’s position was slipping, legs stretching out and feet curling when Rocket looked over his shoulder, so he gripped both asscheeks and let his claws dig in a little until Pete’s spine curved obligingly. Pete was making the most amazing noises, all gasps and pure cries, his brows knit in ecstasy. Pinpricks of sweat glittered over the broad field of his shoulders and his asshole clenched periodically against Rocket’s dick.

“Mm, Rocket,” sighed Pete again, and that was it. 

His balls felt heavy and there was a mounting sense of pressure like a static tidal wave, and he thrust frenziedly as it crashed behind his eyes. His neck, arms, back—everything tensed up as the pressure broke into this blinding joy and an overwhelming sense of peace. He slumped over Pete’s back for a few seconds, gasping in the wake of his orgasm and feeling his pulse acutely. Then, all-too-soon, he was overstimulated and pulled away, dick retracting. His trembling knees carried him the few steps forward and he collapsed on the pillows, facing Pete. 

Quill’s eyes were sly, half-lidded, and his cheeks were still flushed. Rocket studied the other man’s face silently, noting the small scars on his brow and chin, the very subtle dusting of freckles across the bridge of his nose, and the odd scattering of deep copper and brown hairs in his otherwise strawberry-blond facial hair. Pete was quiet, too, smiling secretively, and he suddenly lifted his head to kiss the tip of Rocket’s nose.

“Ah! Gross!” Rocket jerked back, sputtering and wiping his nose off on one of Pete’s pillows, glaring over at his friend. Boyfriend? Whatever. “What the fuck? If I could stand up, I’d kick your ass.”

Quill grinned. “Sorry. It was just in my face. You good?”

Rocket shrugged, nuzzling into the pillows for a more comfortable position. “I’m fine. No fair, saying my name.”

Quill’s blush deepened and he rolled his eyes. “Yeah, sure, because I totally planned to do that.”

Rocket tried to tell if he was lying, but he seemed genuine. “That was for real?”

Quill scowled. “Like I would fake that? For anyone, but especially for you?”

Rocket stared for a second and then cackled, curling up and holding his gut. “You sappy flaknard! Ugh, that’s so glarkging adorable!”

Pete tried to maintain his glare but couldn’t suppress a grin as he pulled a pillow from the pile and whacked Rocket with it. “You’re such a trug.”

“One of my many charms,” laughed Rocket, blocking the second attempted blow and throwing the offending pillow off the bed. He touched Quill’s chin tentatively, then, when Quill didn’t seem to mind, stroked from his temple down his cheeks, scratching delicately at the edges of his sideburns. “So?”

Quill shifted, reaching over and playing with the fingers of Rocket’s other hand. “So what?”

“Did we mess it up?” Rocket grinned, but his palms suddenly pricked with sweat. 

Pete shook his head, leaning down and brushing his lips over Rocket’s hand. “Nope. At least, not yet.” He flashed Rocket a wry smirk. “Gimme a few months. Eight is my record.”

Rocket snorted. “You’re an idiot.”

Quill raised an eyebrow. “Hey, clearly it works.”

“Yeah, well…go to sleep, stupid.” Rocket huffed, pulling away and shuffling onto his other side. “We gotta get up early, remember?”

Quill’s laugh was warm and comfortable, and Rocket could spend the rest of his life listening to it and die happy. “Yeah, okay. G’night, asshole.”

He deactivated the lights and remotely turned off the music, and then there was nothing but the sound of their breathing in the dark and the slight ticking of the ventilation system, and Rocket fell asleep to the steady beating of Quill’s heart against his back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry about the typos--I posted this in kind of a rush, but I'm going back through and I'll fix what I find. Also thank you guys as always for sticking around! Let me know if there's any places that need smoothing out--I wasn't sure how well I managed with keeping the pronouns clear. 
> 
> Probably gonna be a longer wait until the next one--my in-laws are coming into town and I'll be working after, but I promise that I'm not abandoning this! Thanks again for being so patient and supportive!


	10. Mr. Tambourine Man

Everything was silver and soft. He felt like he was in zero-grav, floating in a directionless wash that was quieter than anywhere he’d been but space. Actually, he paused to focus and realized he couldn’t hear himself breathe; it was quieter than space. He basked in the gentle silence, stretching out to embrace the light, and it seemed to grow brighter in response. His fur stirred as the light around him pulsed, a sweetly gentle breeze hushing through the emptiness. It was tidal, ebbing and flowing steadily, and he thought idly that it must be Quill’s breathing registering in his subconscious and affecting his dream. The thought of Quill made him feel even lighter, and the silver became a blinding white. 

Against the brilliance, something roiled. It was too far, too faint to make out, but something about the movement clutched his heart with cold fingers, and the light around him dulled.

A thin, metallic taste filled his mouth and a low vibration hummed behind his eyes. Shadowed figures loomed above, reaching down with glittering implements. The faint beeping of monitors matched the pounding in his ears. 

How? one of the shadow people asked another in a voice that warped and slid. How how how do you give—

He knew this was the start of an old dream, a bad one, and he forced himself to wake.

Rocket’s eyes snapped open in the dim safety of Pete’s room. He was breathing hard but every muscle was tensed, maintaining a perfect stillness despite the residual terror thrilling along his spine. No. No, he was home. He was safe. 

Quill mumbled in his sleep and shifted behind him, chin drifting down and nuzzling in the fur at the back of Rocket’s neck. The warm bloom of his breath through his ruff was soothing, and some of the tension bled away. He shuffled back a little, pressing more firmly against Quill and squeezing his eyes closed. His heart thudded unevenly and he focused on steadying his breathing. 

The musky smell of sex and body odor hung around them comfortably, but suddenly it was stifling. He felt hot and dirty, and he needed to move, needed to get out and clear his head and bury the fragmented memories and the lingering sense of unease from his dream. Moving cautiously, timing his movements with Quill’s snores so he didn’t wake the human, Rocket edged off the bed and padded towards the door. He snagged his jumpsuit from the floor and held it over his front, tapping the access pad and stepping out into the hall.

The dim lights of the corridor were still shockingly bright, and he winced, squinting as he closed the door behind him. His internal clock wasn’t the most reliable, but it felt disgustingly early. The ship was quiet, at least, so he probably had a few hours before they had to get going. Plenty of time for a quick shower and a nap back with Quill before he’d be expected to do anything. Plenty of time to get his head back on straight.

He trotted down the hall, slipping into the bathroom and locking the door behind himself. The water heater hadn’t recharged from its last use, and he hissed at the chill shock of needling spray against his muzzle as it activated. Soon he was soaked and shivering, raking his claws through his fur to draw searing lines over his skin. Awake, he was awake. This was real. Breathe.

His chest felt small, heart arrhythmic, and he sighed. Stupid. Dreams are just screensavers shat out by a brain on autopilot. Sometimes bad memories got churned up amidst the other garbage. Pattern-seeking was making chance look like conspiracy, and he was wasting time and energy.

Rocket snorted in self-disgust and turned off the shower. Clean enough. He shook himself vigorously and stood in the silence, breathing heavily. Thin, abbreviated dripping from the ceiling and his still-wet fur. A thready gurgle from the drain. The rush of air through his nose. The real world. 

He shook himself again, clearing most of the moisture from his undercoat. Whatever. He’d had bad dreams before and he’d have them again. It wasn’t exactly something he could prevent, but now he was letting it bleed into his waking life, corrupting time he could be spending doing something more productive. His ears flicked back. More immediately, it was stealing time he could be spending with Quill.

Flark that. 

He ran his hands through the damp licks of fur over his ruff and front, scattering a few droplets. Fine. At least the best he could get without a towel. He stepped out of the shower chamber and picked his jumpsuit off the floor, grabbing a fistful of fabric and rubbing it briskly over himself. Ekruxian kinetic weave wasn’t the most absorbent of materials, but it sucked up the remaining moisture without too much difficulty.

Rocket wrung out the armor and held it up in front of himself as he keyed open the bathroom door and checked the hall. Still nobody. Nice. 

He jogged back to Quill’s room and punched the access pad, letting the jumpsuit fall to the floor as the door closed again behind him. His eyes took a second to adjust to the darkness, but the warmth of the small room and the instant familiarity of the smells—old sweat, Quill, clean laundry, and a lingering undercurrent of alcohol—loosened the anxious knot in his chest. He took a deep breath and edged around the bed.

Pete’s breathing was steady. Rocket pushed down on his side of the mattress slowly, so it wouldn’t jolt Quill out of his sleep when he climbed up. Then it was just a matter of transferring his weight. His ribs twinged when he hiked a leg over, but it was more irritating than painful. He slipped gingerly under the sheets, wriggling closer to the dark mound of radiating warmth that was Quill. Despite his care, Quill stirred as he settled, making soft, sleepy grunts that bore a vague resemblance to the words “Stop flarking movin’, Rock.”

“Don’t tell me what do do,” Rocket hissed back, crawling under the shadowed arm Pete had lifted in invitation. 

The other man’s warmth and scent enveloped him and he sighed, snuggling in close. Quill nuzzled at the back of his head, small nose riffling ticklishly through his fur.

“Y’smell good,” Pete mumbled, arm tightening around Rocket in a lazy, affectionate squeeze.

“Go back to sleep, you d’ast idiot,” he snapped, cheeks stinging.

Pete’s answering laugh was a warm, comfortable rumble against his back, and Rocket grinned, stretching and turning into his friend. He raised his head, pressing his muzzle into the pocket of heat between Quill’s neck and jaw and planting a kiss over his pulse. Quill snickered, bumping Rocket’s head with his chin and raising his legs up so his thighs met Rocket’s footpads.

Rocket took advantage of the new leverage, slinging an arm around Quill’s ribs and a leg over his hip in a clumsy but tight whole-body hug. Quill wheezed exaggeratedly, free hand sliding from his shoulder to touch the corded muscle along his arm.

“Dude, you’re so strong.” There wasn’t a lot of light, but Rocket could see the other man’s cheeks bunch up in his usual grin, and he could hear something sly in his tone.

“Don’t do a voice,” he warned. “I hate it when you—”

“Oh, mister Galaxy Guardian,” swooned Pete in a high, breathy voice. “Thank you for saving our ship.”

Rocket groaned, burying his head in Pete’s chest. “You’re welcome. Go away.”

“Okay, okay,” relented Quill in his normal voice. “We can workshop the roleplay. But like, for real. You’re strong as hell. It’s really cool.”

“You’re babbling, Quill. Stop flarkging around.” He was way too chatty to have just woken up. Something was on his mind, but Rocket didn’t have the patience to tease it out politely.

“What? I mean, you are—” 

Rocket let out an irritated huff, and Pete slumped, resigned.

“I’ve just…been thinking,” he said, and Rocket’s heart stopped.

Here it came. He’d known this was too good to be true, but he’d thought they’d have a little more time. At least a d’ast day. What would it be? The ‘keep it professional’ line had never been one Pete could deliver with any degree of credibility, and they hadn’t been romantic enough to validate a ‘we’re better off as friends’. He’d seemed to enjoy the sex, but what if he’d just been curious? Just wanted to see what it was like to fuck an animal, a freak, to add another novelty to his litany of conquests?

It felt like someone was pouring a stream of icy water along his spine, and he felt brittle, dimly aware that he was gritting his teeth.

“Rocket. Hey. Claws.” Quill squirmed under his hand, and he managed to relax his grip, pulling away and averting his eyes from the other man.

“Sorry,” he said. 

“Don’t worry about it, man.” Quill sat up and reached around, patting blindly at the scratches and sighing. “I’m gonna get the light real quick, sorry. Watch your eyes.”

He leaned over to his bedstand and Rocket closed his eyes. A flare of red against his lids and he opened them again to see the room cast in low light and Pete hunched over a drawer, small punctures trickling red beneath his shoulderblade.

“Dammit,” he spat against a swell of guilt, balling up his fists as tight as he could so his claws would cut into his palms. “I’m sorry, Pete—lemme help.”

Quill looked over his shoulder, shaking his head with a smile. “I told you it was fine. Honest.”

He found what he was looking for in the drawer and shimmied back to face Rocket. 

“One time I was really hammered after a job outside Kree space,” he said, peeling open a small bandage. “Started chatting up this giant rock person at a bar. Xe looked like xe was made of, uh, obsidian? Just this really cool, shiny, spiky alien, jet-black at xyr core and kinda transparent on the edges.”

He situated the bandage adhesive side-up in his palm and slapped it on, feeling around the edges to make sure it was secure. “Anyway, I’d never been with one of that species before, and they are sharp. A few minutes into foreplay and suddenly I’ve got an ear on the floor and half of a nipple is dangling off. Blood everywhere, we’re both screaming—it was a mess.”

He flashed a sunny smile at Rocket’s horrified expression. “Anyway, this—” he pointed to his side, arching his eyebrows. “Is small potatoes.”

“An ear?” asked Rocket incredulously. “You’re not just tryin’ to make me feel better, are you?”

“Would I lie to you about a sexcapade?” asked Quill, turning his head to the side and parting his curls so Rocket could inspect the thin pale scar that cut from a few inches behind his temple around to his jawline, scrawling roughly over his earlobe.

Rocket grunted. “What happened with the rock person after?”

Quill shrugged. “Xe paid my medical bill and said something about needing someone xe wouldn’t fillet on the way to second base.”

“Picky.” Rocket bounced his fists off his thighs absently. “So, before. You said you’d been thinking.”

“Mm, uh-huh.” Quill held out his hands, wide palms open to the ceiling. Rocket hesitated, then put his hands on top, tracing the creases with the tips of his fingers. Pete could be a jackass, but he wasn’t sadistic. Maybe he’d overreacted.

“I was wondering what you wanted to do about us and the rest of the team,” said Quill, a flush rising in his cheeks. “I mean, assuming you haven’t changed your mind.”

“I haven’t,” he said hurriedly, chest warm again. Quill’s grin was enough to wash away the remaining anxiety and loosen the tension in his shoulders. 

“Okay, good.” Quill cleared his throat. “Thing is, you’ve always been pretty private about…personal stuff. I wanted to check in with you and see what you’re comfortable with, vis a vis the whole shouting from the rooftops?”

Rocket’s eyes stung and he snorted. “Boy, one solid dick session and you’re ready to commit, huh? Sappy flarknard.”

Quill scowled. “Yeah, you trug. Wanna go to prom with me, or what?”

Rocket looked down at their hands. “Groot’s gonna know. I mean, I’m tellin’ him, but even if I didn’t the big guy would figure it out. Dude’s got scary intuition.”

Pete nodded, waiting.

He cocked his head. “Otherwise, does it matter? I don’t think Gam’ll care much, and Drax’ll probably say something stupid, but it’s not like much is gonna change.”

“Cool, cool, sounds good.” Pete cleared his throat again and glanced over at the light control. “What time is it, even?”

“We got a few hours before go-time,” said Rocket. “You still tired?”

“Nah, I’m up for good now, I think.” He stretched, grunting. “Gotta clean up. Take a dump. Get some food in me before the good stuff gets picked over.”

Rocket snorted, flopping back on the bed. “I don’t want to talk to other people today.”

Quill stood, reaching up towards the ceiling, face screwed up in on itself. “So don’t talk to ‘em. We probably won’t have much to do outside of the fighting.”

“I know, but with Asgardians it’s always a whole thing,” whined Rocket. “Five minutes of ass-kicking followed by three hours of circle-jerking and swappin’ pedigrees. An’ don’t get me started on mead.”

“Jeez, woke up on the little bitch side of the bed, didn’t you?” laughed Quill. He knelt down by the bed, searching the clutter underneath and coming back up with a T-shirt and a pair of pants. “If it’s getting to be too much you can fake a teep from Cosmo or something.”

“Mm. Maybe.” Wouldn’t work every time, but it would be a little more immediate than ship repair. He scratched his chest. “Toss me the jumpsuit.”

Quill complied a little too eagerly, hurling the light armor at Rocket’s face with a shit-eating grin. Rocket snatched it out of the air with a grimace and a flurry of blinks as the legs swung dangerously close to his nose. 

“Dickbag,” he muttered under the gale of back-wrenching guffaws Quill was heroically suffering through by the door.

“Your! Face!” Pete wheezed, one hand cradling his belly. “You’re so cute!”

“Really, asshole? Really?” he snarled, shoving his legs through the pantholes and jumping off the edge of the bed, yanking up the zipper with a harsh jerk. “You’re gonna make me come all the way over there?”

“What, three feet?” Quill made a skeptical face and then pulled a wide-eyed parody of concern. “Oh no—must be more like three miles with your tiny little legs, huh? Aw, dude, I am so sorry.”

Rocket growled and rushed him, latching onto the loose folds of Quill’s shirt and hauling himself up so that they were face to face. Quill was smiling ear to ear, and put a hand to the small of Rocket’s back to steady him.

“You’re the worst,” Rocket told him, glaring, and surged up, planting light kisses over Pete’s forehead, nose, and cheeks. Pete’s chest shook under him as he laughed at the onslaught, and Rocket shifted his grip, locking his fingers behind Pete’s neck and kissing more purposefully, meandering over from a dimple to the corner of his mouth to full on the lips. Quill stilled, eyes sliding contentedly shut, and kissed back, a hand coming up to caress Rocket’s cheek.

They broke apart after a minute or two, golden embers of joy whirling dizzily in Rocket’s skull.

“Can I make you breakfast?” asked Quill, thumb smoothing the fur behind his ear. “And, uh, by ‘make’ I really mean ‘find the best stuff left in the fridge and split it with you’ because if I’m actually cooking, I’m gonna need about three hours and I have the feeling our Norse buddies might get a little pissy about delaying the return of their musty talisman thing so you can have a blue omelette.”

He snorted. “You know that just makes me want a blue omelette, right? You monster?”

Quill grinned. “I’m gonna make you the best three-hour blue omelette you’ve ever had. Later.”

“Fine.” Rocket unclasped his hands and tapped Pete’s shoulder so he’d let him go, and dropped heavily to the ground. “C’mon, then. I’m over here starvin’ here waitin’ for your slow ass.”

“You’re so rude, man.” Quill tousled his hair artfully and opened the door, bowing dramatically and gesturing that Rocket should go first. “See this? This is called ‘manners’. I can get the Avengers to explain them for you.”

“I know manners,” scoffed Rocket, walking backwards down the hall. He plastered a saccharine smile over his face and adopted a mockingly obsequious voice as he darted back and forth across the corridor, bowing frenetically. “May I take your coat, sir? May I take your hat? May I suck your dick, sir?”

Pete snickered and Rocket dropped the act, hands on his hips. 

“Manners are a waste of time and energy. Flark ‘em. And flark the Avengers. When’s the last time those douchebags helped us, after all we done for them?”

Pete counted on his fingers. “Uhhh, two weeks ago. With that Brood spy?”

Rocket cocked his head. “Wasn’t that the X-Men? I’m pretty sure it was the X-Men.”

Pete frowned, then snapped his fingers. “X-Force! I—I’m eighty-five percent certain it was the X-Force.”

“What’s the difference?”

Pete shrugged as they walked into the kitchen. “Pretty sure they’re affiliated. What with the X and all.”

“No, really?” Rocket drawled, hauling open the refrigerator door. “They’re not part of the X-Faction?” 

“Is that even a thing?” Quill whispered to himself while Rocket rooted through the remaining provisions.

“Flarked if I know.” Still a couple pieces of fruit left. The egg container had four eggs and the stacked shells of two used ones for some reason. Rocket made a face and picked the shells out, throwing them into the trash. “D’ast slobs.”

“Mornin’, Drax,” said Pete, and Rocket flinched, cheeks heating.

“Hello, Quill. You’re up early. Hello, Rocket.” The big guy sidled past Pete and Rocket, opening up the cupboard and picking out a bowl, then coming to stand uncomfortably close to Rocket.

“Hey. Whaddya want?”

“I need two eggs. Are there any crickets left?”

Rocket bared his teeth. “Not for you. ‘Less you’re planning on buyin’ groceries before we take off.”

Drax considered, brow furrowed, then nodded. “This is fair.”

“Good man,” said Rocket, passing the egg carton over. “But we are actually out of the crickets.”

Drax picked two blue eggs out, cracking them with easy dexterity into his bowl and dropping the shells into the garbage. “Very well. I can purchase more soon enough.”

“Get more veggies while you’re at it.” Rocket pulled out the remaining eggs, cradling them against his chest while he searched for more ingredients. “There wasn’t much left on the shelves the other night and I’m sick of the canned crap.”

Drax grunted, busying himself over the stovetop, and Rocket relented. He tucked a fruit under his chin and a box of wilted tubers that looked similar to mushrooms into the crook of his elbow, and reluctantly picked up a shaker of dehydrated nutrient crisps. He carried his stash to the far side of the range, catching the leg of a chair with his foot and dragging it over.

“You… want a hand, Rock?” Quill asked from the table. Rocket glanced at him over his shoulder and the other man had put out plates and utensils, and sat with forced nonchalance in one of the remaining chairs. His thumbs were working overtime on his knuckles.

“No. Shu—I got this,” he said, deliberately gentling his tone. “But uh…coffee?”

“Yeah! Yeah,” Quill grinned with relief, jostling the table in his hurry to stand up. “Comin’ right up. What’re you making?”

“Breakfast.”

Quill shot him a dirty look and Rocket winked.

Drax had taken the smallest pan and basically just dumped his eggs in there to cook. A few Krooxian peppers, but otherwise the big guy didn’t season them at all. Rocket wrinkled his nose in disgust, cracking his eggs into a wide-based pan and letting them fry separately. Some salt, fatty oil from (judging by the label) an apron-wearing fish-being, chili powder, and crushed peppercorn. He pawed around the spice drawer, finding a few cloves of something between Terran garlic and the small, violet onions heavily featured in Spartaxian cuisine. He crushed them slightly and added them to the pan. 

The spitting of the egg whites and the soft shushing of coffee grounds being added to the pot were relaxing. Rocket closed his eyes, breathing it in and feeling the tension in his facial muscles ease. Drax scraped his pan with a spatula. Quill cleared his throat. The coffeemaker started to percolate, filling the kitchen with the familiar dark, earthy scent, and Rocket smiled to himself. Mornings might not be the worst, after all.

“I am Groot.” 

“Hey, bud.” Rocket poked at the yolk of the closest egg with a claw. Getting there. He shredded the soft tubers and added them to the pan, stirring them around the juice from the spice cloves. A few vines ventured into his field of vision, then slid over his shoulders, curling with affectionate pressure. “Yeah, yeah, find your own breakfast, dude.”

Groot’s laugh was a low rumble, and his amber eyes danced when Rocket glanced over his shoulder. Aw, flark. Did he already know? If he figured it out before Rocket had the chance to tell him, he might think Rocket was trying to keep it secret, or was embarrassed or things had gone wrong or any multitude of increasingly inaccurate and potentially hurtful misconceptions. And then the big softie would get worried about him, and he’d start questioning the team and this whole situation. Even if he immediately explained how things really were, it’d put Groot through a few minutes of anxiety that’d wilt his foliage, and he just hated seeing the big guy sad.

“I am—”

“Quill an’ I banged,” he blurted. Groot blinked, and then gave him a thumbs-up. Quill choked on a mouthful of coffee and for a heartbeat there was no sound other than Pete’s strangled hacks and the sizzle of eggs. Then Drax started bellowing with laughter.

The fur on Rocket’s shoulders stood up and he bared his teeth at the other man. “Got a problem, trug?”

Drax shook his head, wiping a tear from his eye. “On the contrary, I am very pleased. Gamora owes me two hundred credits from a wager we made the other night.”

“Wait, you guys bet on us doin’ it?” demanded Pete in a tone that wavered between indignant and proud. 

Drax’s smile vanished, expression and body language freezing the way they did on poker nights before his bluff was called. “Of course not. I was merely remembering an unrelated bet.”

“As interested parties, me an’ Quill should get seventy-five each,” drawled Rocket, turning back to his eggs so the others wouldn’t see the stupid grin he could feel spreading itself across his face.

“Aw, Rock,” cooed Pete. “So thoughtful of you to extort money for me, babe!”

“Don’t let your fat head get too inflated, Quill,” he snorted. “Your seventy-five is going directly towards your tab. Also, get a plate. Food’s done.” 

Quill groaned theatrically, but came over with a couple plates, standing close. His hand stole over, teasing at Rocket’s elbow affectionately as he dumped eggs and tubers onto the plates. Rocket shut off the stovetop and hopped down from his chair. He braced his back against the counter and dug in, gulping massive forkfuls down without much chewing. Pete followed suit, humming brightly and leaning companionably against Rocket’s shoulder.

Rocket felt a twinge of irritation at the jostle of his arm, but the other man’s thigh was warm and comfortingly solid, so he suppressed it. 

“Oh shit, dude, this is really good!” Pete beamed down at him and Rocket thought he might start crying.

He rolled his eyes and looked back to his plate instead. “Yeah? You sound surprised.”

“Well,” Pete shrugged. “That uhhh, quesadilla thing you tried to make last week? Didn’t exactly fill me with confidence in your culinary abilities.”

“With what I had to work with?” Rocket snorted. “You should be glad it was still edible.”

“It wasn’t, actually.” Pete grinned when Rocket glared up at him. “But the eggs are fantastic. Thank you.”

“Welcome.” Rocket’s ears burned and he stuffed some more tubers in his mouth. “How was your night, Groot?”

Groot shrugged, opening the refrigerator and taking out a carton of Gner’ish fruit juice. “I am Groot.”

“Yeah? Which bar?” asked Rocket.

“I am Groot.” Groot unscrewed the cap and tipped the carton up to his mouth, glowing silver juice streaming down his chin.

“C’mon, dude—use a glass.” Rocket wrinkled his nose. “That’s just gross. Didja go with the Asgardians?”

Groot rolled his eyes. “I am Groot.” He put the cap back on and fished around the fridge door compartments.

“But you met them there, right?” asked Quill, arching an eyebrow. “Anything happen?”

“I am Groot!” Groot protested. “I am Groot. I am Groot.” He found a packet of some kind of wafers and tore it open, inspecting each piece before crunching into them with relish. “I. Am Groot.”

“Talking’s good. You’re good at making friends,” offered Rocket awkwardly. “It’s always weird drinkin’ outside your usual group.”

“How were the drinks?” asked Pete. “We had some pretty weird ones the other night.”

Groot made a face, using a few vines to crumple up the empty packaging and throw it into the trash. “I am Groot.”

Rocket nodded. Experimentation was fine, but when people tried getting too creative with beverage textures, the results could be noxious. 

Groot smiled and stepped closer, a few vines ruffling Quill’s hair affectionately and gently patting Rocket’s shoulder, and then the big guy waved goodbye and headed back out.

Drax’s eggs were burning, but he kept flipping them, gazing placidly down into the pan.

“You’re ruinin’ your breakfast, dude.” Rocket pointed out.

Drax looked surprised. “I like my eggs crispy.”

“Crispy?” echoed Quill, looking over at them with doubt. “These are about two-thirds of the way to charcoal, my guy.”

“Exactly,” nodded Drax. “Not too much longer.”

Rocket shook his head, shoveling the rest of his eggs into his mouth and dumping the dirty plate in the sink. “I don’t wanna watch this. I’m out, Quill. Comin’?”

“Mm!” Quill hurriedly ate the rest of his food and put his plate on the counter. “Gotta shower and get my stuff ready for the fight.”

“It will be good exercise,” said Drax cheerfully. “Starjackers are weak, but they are quick enough to be fun.”

“I hope they have some cool stuff,” Rocket said. “Could always use some more junk.”

“Yeah, but try not to pick up any magic shit this time, bud,” Quill said with a wink as they headed out of the kitchen. 

“Hey, it led to a job, didn’t it?” Rocket bristled. 

Quill rolled his eyes. “Rock, what you should have said was ‘I don’t need to—you’re my lucky charm’ and then we could’ve kissed again.”

Rocket feigned barfing. “Were you cursed to be this stupid?”

Quill snorted. “More like ‘blessed’, asshole. I’m blessed to be this stupid.”

Rocket laughed, eyeing him slyly. “Y’know, I have been feelin’ lucky lately.”

“There you go, babe,” smiled Quill, leaning down for a quick kiss. Rocket strained upwards to meet him, pressing a little kiss at the corner of his mouth and then a full one over his lips.

Quill look smug when he pulled away, flicking Rocket’s ear. “See you later, then.”

“Lookin’ forward to it.” Rocket watched him trot off for a minute, grinning involuntarily, then shook his head and started toward the engine room. Didn’t want to have the Asgardian engineer sneering at his rigging later.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is so uneventful, plotwise. The next one should be more fun. I've been plotting things out and hopefully will be updating more frequently from here on out. 
> 
> Also, I've been meaning to go back through and update chapter summaries and tags and stuff, so if there's anything you think should be included in terms of content warnings, please shoot me a message! 
> 
> As always, thank you so much for reading along! The support means so much to me!


	11. I've Got a Syncing Feeling About This

Starjackers were glorified pirates, having earned their infamy by stealing tech from the more reputable Starjammers and proceeding to use it to launch mid-jump raids on merchant transports and anything else that had the misfortune to attract their attention. A lot of times this ended up being smaller pirate bands, which would either be destroyed or absorbed into a Starjacker splinter faction. Asgardians were reputably wealthy warriors with powerful weaponry. Usually Starjackers wouldn’t be targeting them, but the small envoy making frequent jumps may have been seen as a renegade faction without support of the empire.

Jump drives were designed to fold space quickly and to keep the ships they were housed in from colliding with other ships. To this point, manufacturers had standardized randomization algorithms to keep the frequency along which a jump was mapped from harmonizing with both objects existing in their natural states and objects accelerated to jump speeds. Syncing jumps was highly illegal in most sectors of known space because there were about a billion ways for it to go wrong. If you wanted to crack your jump drive to sync it with another ship’s, you had to be incredibly skilled and somewhat self-destructive, so really he had this in the bag.

It wasn’t something he’d done before, and he didn’t know that the Asgardian engineer had any similar experience, but he’d thought it through before, and had studied enough of the sloppy Starjacker jury-rigged drive interfaces and Brood cascade assemblages to feel confident in the tinkering they’d have to do. Still, though. It wouldn’t hurt to do a few calibrations and final checks.

Gryff found him in the engine room a few hours later. 

“Rocket?” they called doubtfully from the threshold. “They told me you were in here.”

Rocket grunted, pushing aside heavy bundles of wiring from the half-open panel he’d been tinkering in and waving so they could see him. “Yeah. You the tech?”

“Mhm.” They came closer, looking around. He could see their gaze linger on some of the out-dated equipment and on his more inventive adjustments to the engine’s heatsinks and acceleration coil, and he bristled defensively, but they said nothing.

“Gimme a sec,” he muttered, when it was clear no criticism was forthcoming. 

“Sure. Whenever you’re finished.” Gryff nodded and strode away a comfortable distance, settling in front of the jump drive.

He resisted the urge to glance over at them every few seconds, telling himself they wouldn’t mess with his settings and wouldn’t touch anything by accident, but the reassurances took almost as much time as looking would have. He finished up with only a little anxiety-induced fumbling and stuffed the bundles of wiring back in the panel, replacing the smooth metal facing with a satisfying click.

“Okay.” Rocket hauled himself up with a grunt, wiping his palms down the front of his jumpsuit as he walked over to the jump drive. Still intact, and Gryff had their hands clasped loosely behind their back. “You done this before?”

“Not with ships of this size,” they said, flashing him a crooked grin. “Synced three scout vessels back in training.”

“Yeah? And how was the jump?”

They flashed their hands and blew out their cheeks, making a soft “boom” noise. “Catastrophic.”

Rocket barked out a laugh. “Well, let’s do better this time.”

He opened up the drive chassis, exposing the wiring, focusing crystals, and positional matrices.

“I’ve modified just about everything in this hunk of scrap, so you can chuck conventional theory out the window.”

Gryff nodded, scanning the set-up critically. “There’s some pretty gutsy stuff here. You prioritize speed, distance…sacrifice accuracy, yeah?”

He shrugged, gesturing vaguely to some of the ancillary monitors. “Yeah, but I boosted the collision avoidance so it’s compensated for. Got a couple redundant systems up in case anything gets fritzed out. Taken out too many big bads to be wiped out by an asteroid.”

“Right? How lame would that be?” Gryff grinned, leaning back and pulled a pen from their belt. “Okay, left hand is standard.”

Rocket watched them sketch out his set-up on the back of their hand, bemused. “Y’know we can—” he gestured, bringing up a holoscreen and taking a shot of the layout.

“I know, I know, I just—” Gryff flushed, “I remember better by doing it.”

“Gotcha.” He sighed, giving his beautifully efficient set-up one last look. “Let’s do it.”

They went to work rewiring the drive system, exchanging little more than grunts, tool requests, and quick confirmations. After the initial protectiveness of his systems ebbed to manageable levels, Rocket found himself enjoying the work. Like the quieter moments when it was just him and Groot working together, patching up whatever rust-bucket they’d managed to hotwire away from the latest in a long line of sketchy jobs—not trying to make it the best so much as trying to get it up and running, make it work, make it safe enough to get them to the next sketchy job in one piece. Nostalgia wasn’t something he experienced often, but this was relaxing.

“I like that. What is it?” asked Gryff, leaning back and wiping their forehead.

“Like what? Pass the voltimeter.” He held a hand out and they obliged.

“What you’re humming. I thought the Terran was the musical one?”

His neck felt hot and he scowled down at the mess of wiring, reaching in and testing the circuits. “Among other things. He’s an idiot, so he blasts it and it gets stuck in everyone’s heads.”

“You should hear Angela’s flute-playing.” Gryff rolled their eyes. “By the nine realms, I swear she only knows one song.”

Rocket laughed, trying to picture the redhead tooting obliviously while the other Asgardians stewed. The last circuit checked out. Should be good to go on his end. “I think we got it.”

“And…right hand is modified,” they announced, scrawling on their other hand.

“What’re you gonna do when we do your ship?” Rocket cocked his head, taking an updated picture with his holoscreen. “Take off your boots and draw on your feet?”

“Ah, leave off,” they grinned, looking at their hands. “There’s plenty of room left.”

“Sure.” He hauled the chassis back and checked the tools in his bag. “Where’s your guys’ ship?”

They headed out, trekking over the grassy hill on the far side of the capital building. The Asgardians had put down on the slope, and their vessel crouched like a great copper beetle in the noonday sun. It was a good deal bigger than the Milano, too. Rocket eyed the sleek lines, the uniform construction and the slim form of modern turrets with more than a pang of envy. Helped to have a whole society with deep pockets and a vested interest in your survival at your back.

The loading ramp extended as Gryff approached, and Rocket followed them up into the belly of the Asgardian ship. Their atmo control kept it an easy twenty degrees below the ambient temperature of his ship, and he shivered, footpads chill on the smooth silver floorpanels. The gangway led up to a tidy cargohold. Spare weapons, ship parts, and armor was hung up on the walls, and a few chests presumably filled with ammo or more of the same. Globes of green flame that gave off no heat bobbed in the corners and by the exits. Gryff waved him on and into a brief passage, metal coiling darkly, symmetrical and perfect. 

They passed a few closed ports, which Gryff nodded to, describing only as ‘rooms’. He felt a slight grade to the floor—upwards. The passage opened up on his right, and he peered into what must have been the bridge. Everything was bright and ornate, interlocking filigree trailing the ceilings and shining around the feet of each console. Viewscreen was wide and sweeping, but currently polarized. Someone lounged in a chair off in the far side of the room, but Rocket couldn’t tell who it was and they didn’t turn to acknowledge the two passerby. 

Gryff coughed lightly, and when he looked over, they had opened a port ahead. Green light from the door beyond bathed their wide features and glinted gently off their armor. 

“This way.” They let him go first.

The Asgardian jump drive was almost cute—squat and compact, with smooth edges. Some beveled designs scrolled across each face, but overall much less ostentatious than typical Asgardian aesthetic. The belly of the engine hung overhead, a green fire light suspended beside the hatch. No stray bolts, no panels hanging askew. He let out a heavy breath and went to the drive, clearing his throat.

“Okay, let’s see it.”

Gryff gestured beneath the flame and it floated over obligingly. They pressed a button on the side of the drive chassis and the top lifted with a pneumatic hiss, separating into four sections and peeling away smoothly. Their layout was fairly standard. Bulbs and wiring shining like jewel candies, but configured without imagination.

“This isn’t your bird, is it?” he asked.

“No,” admitted Gryff, leaning in and taking out some of their standard tools. “Military issue. Not allowed to make unauthorized modifications. I mean, we probably have the leeway to do…this…but they won’t be thrilled about it.”

“Mm. Figured.” He activated his holoscreen and took a shot. “Left hand.”

Gryff snorted, but took out their pen and started detailing a diagram on the back of their left hand.

“Y’know, when this works and we’re resetting ‘em, you could reverse the anode here, keep the top crystal rotated, and rewire the lower cascade, and you’d burn a lot less fuel per jump.”

“I didn’t figure you for an optimist,” they cracked, replacing the pen and hunkering down. “But again, not supposed to deviate from the standard layout. That way lies demotions and wage cuts.”

“Even if it saves the guys at the top an assload of units?” he asked, cocking his head.

“Mhm. Bottom line is, we’re long-lived and most of the royals are hardline traditionalists,” Gryff said, voice low. “Not a lot changes, especially where the military is concerned. At least, not without some significant and persistent push behind it.”

“That’s flarkging stupid,” he said. “Your one-eyed muckity-muck should be more worried about complacency in his empire than the Phoenix Force.”

Gryff flashed him a thin smile but didn’t comment, and he suddenly wondered whether there were listening devices on the ship. Or maybe listening agents. Angie had implied she didn’t have her dear old daddy’s trust, after all. Flark, bein’ on someone else’s ship made him paranoid. Still, he shut his mouth and focused on the task at hand, keeping his borderline seditious opinions to himself while they worked.

As lazy as the initial set-up was, it was far easier to modify than his had been, and they finished up pretty quickly. They verified the final layout with Rocket’s holo of the one in the Milano, and, satisfied that they corresponded exactly, recorded the new configuration in their respective ways. Then they checked again. It was vital that they matched the drives perfectly—for the jump to sync correctly (read: not to cause the molecular disintegration of both ships and the hopeless flarknards within), they had to be tricked into reading the two separate vessels as disparate components of a single ship, guiding them through hyperspace simultaneously while maintaining integrity and depositing them safely (read: without reintegrating stuff that wasn’t meant to be integrated, creating at best a patchwork vessel populated with Cronenbergian monstrosities) at the correct coordinates. So if Gryff or Rocket triple- or quadruple-checked before pronouncing themselves satisfied, neither would give the other crap for it.

Gryff pressed the button again. The chassis sections rose smoothly, sealing together with a gentle click. They sighed, wringing their hands out and smiling shakily over at Rocket.

“That’s it. Hope it goes better than last time.”

“‘Course it will,” grinned Rocket. “You didn’t have me last time.”

“Good point, good point.” They ran their hands through their green-tipped braids and shuffled to the portal. “You, uh, wanna stick around for a while? Could give you a tour of the ship and all.”

“Uh, I’m good.” Rocket stretched luxuriously. “Thanks, though. Maybe after the jump you can show us the best bars in Asgard?”

Gryff laughed. “Sure, I can do that.”

“Great!” Rocket joined them at the doorway and they started down the hall together. “Love that local insight.”

“Is it like a ritual for you guys?” they asked casually. “Whole team goes out drinking after fights?”

“Pretty much. When we can.” He scratched his neck, peeking into the bridge when they passed it. The person in the chair had gone. “Don’t you?”

They shrugged. “Not always. Depends on the team.”

“Gotcha.” He eyed them sidelong. “Well, me an’ Groot used to deal with changin’ rosters a lot. I’m happy with the gig we got now, but he misses meeting new people.”

“Oh yeah?” Gryff wasn’t pale like Pete, but their blush was just as obvious. “He seems pretty nice.”

“He’s a big softie. We go way back.” 

“The, uh…language thing?” Gryff’s brows knit together in concern.

“Mm. Makes sense after you spend some time with him.” This was always the snag with trying to wingman for Groot. “It’s just some kind of ph—”

The door to the compartment they were passing sprang open with a pneumatic hiss and Greyval stepped out, a gold-patterned towel around his waist and a dark glower on his brow.

“Guardian,” he said stiffly, staring a foot above Rocket’s head.

Rocket grunted, wary. Idiot probably wouldn’t try anything, but this was his ship and Rocket was on his own. Nothin’ he couldn’t handle—blow to the balls or stomach to bend him over, then one to the windpipe and one to the base of the skull should drop even a pigheaded Asgardian. Or duck through the legs, hamstring ‘im, and talk things over once the moaning died down. Didn’t have to start anything—just had to be ready. Gryff was tensed at his side, but they were still an unknown, and couldn’t really be counted on.

“Just finished with the drives,” they said with a terse smile. “Should be good to go.”

“Great,” Greyval said with obvious insincerity. “Well, if I’ve just got one shower left in this life, I’m gonna make it a long one.”

He pushed between them, shuffling in what was probably meant to be an intimidating manner, but just put his towel-covered crotch uncomfortably close to Rocket’s muzzle. Rocket yawned, giving Greyval a good look at what he was shoving his most tender parts towards. The Asgardian shuffled off pretty quickly after that.

“Don’t hurt your wrist, herald!” Rocket hollered after him, making a crude gesture. “You’ll need it to clap for me when I kill those Starjackers for you.”

The muscles in Greyval’s retreating back flinched, but he didn’t respond, and Rocket smirked in satisfaction.

“I wouldn’t aggravate him if I were you,” murmured Gryff, just loud enough for him to hear. “He’s got a reputation for…retribution.”

Rocket’s smirk soured, but he didn’t say anything. He could keep his guard up. Keep his head down until they were done with this little mission. But he wasn’t gonna scrape and simper for a petty jerk used to getting his way.

Gryff lead him out, waving goodbye as he left down the gangway and trudged through the blue grass back to his ship. He didn’t see anyone on the way in, which was just as well. He had some tinkering to do.

A couple hours, two reinforced spacesuits and a heat-seeking detonator later, and he was interrupted by Gamora’s voice over the speaker system.

“Jump time in thirty. Get your shit together and be ready for Starjacker attack.”

Rocket snorted, securing one of the suits to his shoulderstrap and tucking the detonator into a pouch at his waist. Aerorigs should be charged up. He had a sidearm locked at the small of his back for emergencies, and the collapsible rifle at its maglock above that. He’d get something with a little more kick from the garage. Alright.

He ducked out of his room and headed up to the bridge, flexing his fingers. Jump would be fine. The drives were rigged perfectly. They’d make the jump, spring the Starjacker trap, conduct a quick slaughter, and come out in Asgard space. Little ceremony, unit transfers, yada yada, then to Knowhere. Talk with Cosmo, figure out the psychic glark, memorize Pete’s face by touch, fly off into the closest sunset and roll credits.

He sighed, tamping down the stairs to the cockpit and nodding to Gamora, who’d armored up and was calibrating the turret systems. She inclined her head in acknowledgment.

“Not much notice, Gam.” He settled heavily in his chair, engaging the engine and running final checks on shields and life support. 

“We’ve been here for three days,” she said. “Which is two too many. It’s about time we got this mission underway.”

He grunted. Systems looked good. “Not a beach person, huh?”

“Beach is fine,” she said, shifting idly and closing the holoscreens. “Just don’t like the waiting.”

“Mhm. Y’sound eager to test the jump sync.” 

She smirked. “I trust you’re paranoid enough to have gotten it right.”

“Thanks,” he said, easing the thrusters up. The Milano purred and lifted itself off of the ground, and Rocket could feel her rumble in his bones and implants. He leaned back in the cracked leather and grinned. This was his favorite part.

“We takin’ off?” Quill jogged down the stairs, his dumb rust-colored jacket flaunting around his knees.

“What’s it look like, dumbass?” Rocket ducked the ear flick as Quill passed by and hauled on the controls, angling the Milano skyward and sending her up through the rosy clouds. Pink ran like watercolor and yielded to pale orange, then a flash of daiquiri green, and they broke free of atmo and were cruising in the gentle velvet of space. Stars twinkled before them in a vast, glittering expanse, thousands upon thousands of distant systems, just a few jumps away from discovery. 

Rocket’s heart thumped and he scowled at the quaver of wonder that shot through him. Stupid. Most of those planets would just be lifeless rocks. Those that weren’t would usually be podunk wastes, or pre-space societies tearing each other apart over irrelevant crap.

“Anybody got eyes on the Asgardians?” he asked.

“I am Groot.” 

He turned in his seat to see Groot squeeze himself through the bridge port and hunker down next to his monitors.

“Hey bud, glad you could make it.”

“I am Groot?” Groot drew his haphazardly extended seatbelt across his vast chest.

“Nah, just hanging out in orbit until the others are ready to move.” Rocket scanned the secondary screens, catching a pulsing dot at the corner of one. “Okay, okay—that looks like them!”

Pete started up the broadcast. “Do we have a private frequency for this, or what?”

“Me an’ Gryff diverted it through the drives so we could chat during the jump,” said Rocket, gesturing dismissively. “Any channel should work if they’re in range.”

“What’s kickin’, guys?” Pete called, grinning widely. “Who’s ready for a team-up?”

“Reading you clearly, Guardians,” came Angela’s voice from the speakers. She wasn’t the easiest to read, even with body language, but Rocket thought he could detect an undercurrent of amusement.

“You Asgardians ready for this jump?” Rocket brought up the drive command screen, claw hovering over the activation button. Once the drives engaged, the jump should take them directly to the assigned return coordinates in Asgardian space Gryff had locked in. 

“As we’ll ever be,” joked Gryff’s voice lamely.

Time to test the theories. His heart beat faster.

“Spool up, then,” he drawled. “Let’s kick some space pirate ass.”

“Commencing jump in three…” began Gryff.

“Two…” Rocket said, the back of his head itching.

“One!” they called in unison, and Rocket pressed the button. 

The dizzying jerk of hyperspace acceleration tugged at his gut and shoved him back in his chair. The glittering vista beyond the viewscreen melted into a rapidly shifting pool of color, wisps of electric blue, lime, magenta, streaking past too quickly to leave more than impressions in everyone’s minds. Beautiful and exhilarating and chaotic—but no more so than normal, and Rocket let out a soft huff of relief. They weren’t in the clear yet, but the fact that they hadn’t blown up yet was, obviously, a good sign.

Quill cleared his throat and opened a new holoscreen, scrolling purposefully until he found the right track. The bridge filled with twangy guitar and crisp percussion, and Rocket rolled his eyes.

“Too cheesy, Quill.”

“I think you mean ‘just cheesy enough’ actually,” Pete corrected, counting down on his fingers and launching into song in perfect time, if not tune. “You got a cute way of walkin’! You got the better—”

“Where’s Drax?” asked Gamora suddenly.

Rocket shrugged, sparing a quick glance over his shoulder to Drax’s empty seat. Big guy didn’t always show up for takeoff. Probably wanted some extra battle prep time or something.

“Was he still on his food run?” asked Quill.

“Oh shit.” Rocket felt wild laughter bubbling up from his gut and tried to temper it, choking and spluttering. “You guys. We left him planetside.”

There was a beat of silence in the cockpit, Rocket’s helpless snickers overloud. Then the others started cracking up, completely drowning out the music.

“What’s—what’s he gonna do when he gets back to the landing site?” wheezed Quill, clutching at his heart.

“I am Groot!” Groot pulled a stern face, holding his arms out stiffly as though holding grocery bags.

“He’s going to be so pissed to have missed the fight,” said Gamora, grinning widely.

“Yeah,” smirked Rocket. “And the Asgardian afterparty.”

“We’ll have to bring him back a keg of mead!” howled Quill, and the memories of the last time Drax had gotten smashed on the honeyed brew, in particular the singularly striking image of his gray-green ass sparkling in the moonlit waters of some lavish Asgardian fountain, set them all off again.

“Hail, Guardians! Still in one piece over there?” asked Angela over the comm, and the remaining Guardians collected themselves.

“No, uh, no catastrophe on our end,” Quill responded, still smiling ear to ear. “You guys holding up okay?”

“Thus far,” she answered, a wry warmth threading into her tone. “No sign of Starjackers.”

Right on cue, the Milano lurched to the side, and a few stray bolts shot past the viewscreen, disappearing into the kaleidoscope of space-time swirling ahead. Rocket growled and twisted the thrusters, sending them into an evasive slalom. The jumpstream wasn’t wide enough for much in the way of maneuvering, especially with the Asgardian’s vessel in the mix, but he could at least keep them from locking on to any vulnerabilities.

“Enemy behind us!” called Gamora, activating her turret controls with a grin.

“I am Groot.”

“Only eighty-six?” Rocket echoed, scowling. His patch job on that shield emitter must not have held. No way did Starjackers have the firepower to take out roughly a quarter of their defenses in one salvo.

“Watch your fire, Guardians,” came Gryff’s voice over the comm. “They jumped in right between us.”

Rocket grimaced. Going extravehicular for a good old-fashioned space shoot-out wasn’t an option during a jump. Taking them on ship to ship could get krutacking messy real quick if the bandits decided they weren’t worth the trouble and phased out of the jump, leaving the two ships to tear each other apart with turret fire. Gotta make them think they had a chance.

“You guys have docking gear?” he asked, trying to remember if he’d done those repairs on the egress tunnel after the last time they’d used it. Pretty sure he had.

“Yes, but it wasn’t designed for intrajump use.”

“Be less boring,” he said, typing some evasive move commands into the autopilot to keep them from being an easy target while they set up for boarding. “We’ll meet you in the middle.”

“A bold claim, to imagine five Guardians the fighting equal of five Asgardian warriors.” Was she teasing? Hard to tell with her sometimes.

“Four Guardians,” he corrected. “Funny story. Tell you later. Also, that’s easy money, red.”

“Your overconfidence will beggar you,” she replied. “Lady Gamora, are you so foolish as to agree to this wager?”

“Foolish? Hardly,” Gamora snorted. “Although I hope you won’t think badly of me for relieving you of your money.”

“I think it quite unlikely that you should ever be held in anything but the highest of my regards, Lady Gamora,” Angela purred, and the deadliest woman in the galaxy ducked her head to hide a smile, flushing deep pine.

Rocket rolled his eyes, hopping up out of his chair and heading out of the bridge, the others quick on his heels.

“Man, why don’t you ever say that kind of stuff to me, Rock?” Quill teased.

“Because you’re an idiot and we both know it,” he snapped, neck hot. “Grab your shit and let’s kill some dudes.”

“You’re a poet, babe.”

Rocket mumbled a few choice insults under his breath as he pelted down the hall, heading for the cargo bay and what he hoped would be a fully functional egress tunnel and hull-breach kit. The others peeled off to their respective rooms for armor and guns, but he didn’t pause. He had a suit and some basic weapons already—something extra from the armory with a little more kick would be nice, but wasn’t worth the time it’d take to lug through the breach tunnel now that they had units at stake. 

He skidded to a stop in front of the kit and the collapsed tunnel, deceptively small in its storage form. He pulled it off its mount, grunting as the full weight settled on him, and started for the airlock. His thumb ran alongside one of the fribillium insertion prongs, lying quiescent along the hoop curve for now, and he grinned. 

This was gonna be fun.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> flarkging technobabble is not fun to write. lemme know if anything is too awkward/vague to be credible.
> 
> don't worry about Drax! he's just having a peaceful picnic back on Aethra, and we'll touch back with him in a bit.
> 
> thanks for sticking along, and for all your nice feedback!


	12. Best Laid Plans and all that Flark

Their footfalls pattered against the opalescent light-energy tunnel, flaring in pale bursts against the lurid, shifting backdrop of jump-space around them. Rocket took point, the breach-kit thumping against his chest as he sprinted. Everyone was lugging their BFG of choice and doubling their armor with space suits in the event that the Starjackers slipped out of jump and compromised the tunnel. Their collective shallow, purposeful breaths as they ran together merged and swelled over the comm, as familiar to Rocket as his own heartbeat. He could feel their excitement, the electric tang of battle-readiness snapping at his heels and catching at the back of his throat. 

He snapped open the hull breach kit and extracted the high-powered plasma welder, adjusting the crystal focus until it was set to the finest beam. Perfect. It activated with a jerk, spitting loudly, and Rocket trained the tight jet of brilliance against the smooth metal hull of the Starjackers’ ship. Licks of molten slag spattered to the floor and he grimaced, shifting his feet out of the way. His suit could probably handle a few hits with the enhancements he’d made earlier, but there was no sense in taking avoidable risk and unnecessarily draining his power pack.

Rocket drew the beam around in a wide circle, cutting close to the border of the egress tunnel’s rim. Groot’d have to stay stooped to avoid singeing himself on the edges, but once they were in, he should have plenty of room to stand. Slowing as he neared the start of the cut, he pressed a hand in the center of the circle, keeping it from falling backward into the tunnel. There. He deactivated the welder, stowing it carefully back in the hullbreach kit, and took out the maglock ram, steadying it against the center of the circle, perimeter still aglow with heat. A flick of a claw, and the piston fired, sending the circle of hull inward with comic speed, clanging against something metal within.

Rocket laughed, slinging the breach kit over one shoulder and taking out a sidearm, leaping into the window and scanning for targets. Some kind of ancillary engineering room. Low hutches that hummed softly dotted the narrow floor, and a metal grillwork staircase lead up to two nondescript doors. No enemies presented themselves, and he scowled, stowing his sidearm and trudging after the deployed battering ram. 

“Nobody yet,” he called to the others. “C’mon in.”

The rest of his team entered through the hull breach window, weapons drawn but calm. He deactivated the maglock and stowed the ram, then sealed the case and secured it to his back in exchange for the rifle. He wouldn’t be needing it for the next part. 

He gestured to the doors. “Guess we’re splitting up.”

“Quill and I will take the left,” decided Gamora. “You and Groot on the right.”

“Works for me,” he answered, taking the stairs two at a time and putting his back to the wall by the righthand door. “Don’t dick around—we got an unspecified amount of units on the line.”

“Got it. Keep the dicking to a minimum,” cracked Pete, flashing him a grin as he passed on the way to the other exit, element gun at the ready. 

Gamora sighed, taking point in front of the other door. “Watch your fire—we don’t know where the Asgardians are entering from, and I don’t think Angela will pay up if we kill her crew.”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket grunted in agreement. “Then let’s go in three…two…one.”

Gamora snapped a leg out in a kick that popped her door out of its track while Groot clasped his hands together, growing reinforcing vines around his fists and swinging with enough force to blast their door through its frame, revealing a shadowed hallway. Gam and Quill disappeared to the left. Rocket jumped through the shattered doorway and started running, hands steady on his weapon.

He hauled ass down the dark corridor, the thunder of Groot’s footfalls rolling behind him. They broke out of the hall into a wide open galley, narrow catwalks crossing back and forth on each level above. A few Starjackers in mismatched armor were leaning on the safety railing across the way, chatting indistinctly, but they looked up in time to catch a face-full of laser. Two fell back and didn’t get up, and the third spun away, shoulder flinging gouts of violet blood in manic arcs against the far wall.

“I am Groot,” said Groot, reaching across the gap and yanking the pirate’s uninjured arm, ignoring their panicked fumbling for the gun at their waist, and tossing them wailing into the chasm.

“I am not losing my touch!” Rocket bristled, tearing his gaze away from the way the falling pirate bouncing off catwalks below to scowl at his friend.

“I am Groot,” shrugged Groot, tearing the next door out of its housing and turning his shoulder to absorb the brunt of bolts fired from the room beyond. “I am Groot.”

“Sloppy?!” Rocket echoed incredulously, darting past Groot’s legs and strafing. It was some kind of break room, but some of the more level-headed Starjackers had attempted to mount defenses by flipping the tables and taking cover behind them. Unfortunately for them, lunchroom tables were neither wide enough for complete cover nor dense enough to be bolt-proof. Rocket’s fire shredded the tables and the pirates behind them without ceremony.

Rocket snorted, scanning the bodies and shouldering through the debris towards the next door. “How’s that for sloppy, ya big dummy?”

Groot hummed in disapproval.

Rocket rolled his eyes and activated the door control, hefting his gun up to bear and advancing. Another hallway, but this one had branches. “How ‘bout you help me raise this body count ‘stead of critiquing my form?”

“I am Groot.”

Rocket cackled. He loved it when Groot got petty. He was drawing closer to an intersection, and he signaled Groot to take the right. “Now.”

He launched into a shoulder roll, getting a good look down the branching hall before coming back into cover on the opposite side. Nobody there. Looked like a single room at the far end.

Groot yelled a challenge, and he pivoted, lining up a shot. Two Starjackers were shouting and drawing weapons down the other hall beyond Groot. One of them had a plasma sword and the other had some sort of mid-range hand cannon. Groot was barreling towards them, winding up a swing. Rocket got off a shot—the bolt sped perfectly over Groot’s hip and sunk home in the sword-wielding Starjacker’s throat. Groot smushed the other against the corridor wall with a nasty crunch, and ducked into the room they’d come out of with a grunt.

Rocket’s ears twitched at the crisp sound of the door behind him opening, and he turned toward it with a feral grin. The gaggle of Starjackers came out in a panicked, stumbling rush, firing wide and high as they shouted. Orloni in a sluicevent. He almost felt sorry for them. 

Almost.

He laughed, squeezing off a blazing flurry of shots down the hall, riddling the squirming mass of pirates with scorchmarks and blooms of various colors of blood. A few of them got their bearings enough to fire back with a degree of accuracy that made him duck and hug the wall. One bolt sizzled through the air by his tail close enough to spark against the defensive field of his suit. He scowled.

“Hey flarknards,” he snarled, shooting back. “If you’re gonna hit me, at least have the decency to krutackin’ kill me!”

They didn’t answer. Rocket eased up, resting his gun stock up against his shoulder as he checked the suit’s emitter. Power levels were only slightly depleted, and the protective layer was undamaged. Good. It hadn’t been a direct hit, but he was always a little paranoid with early tech tests.

He jogged up to the door the pirates had piled up around, peering into the room beyond. Looked like a dorm. Nobody else inside. 

“I am Groot!”

He turned back and Groot had finished up with his wing, leaning casually against the corridor wall.

“Yeah, yeah. Let’s keep moving.”

They kept running through the halls, exchanging fire at odd intersections. The pirates were disorganized, and aside from a group with a rocket launcher, didn’t put up much of a resistance. Rocket and Groot came out of the dormitory section and found themselves entering a wide hall, blocked off by a hastily erected barricade that Groot cleared with a shove. Twisted metal, half-melted composite materials, and the sad broken-backed figures of chairs uprooted from console stations gave way to a full-fledged firefight. Glimpses of bronze armor shone through the shifting sea of mismatched Starjacker gear. Asgardians. They’d entered through another hall across the way and were making slow progress towards the far end, where, judging by the important-looking interfaces along the walls, the central command must be located.

“This is more like it,” grinned Rocket, squeezing off a few pulses of fire at the fringes of the battle and toward the clusters that hovered uncertainly, holding position in defense of the bridge.

“I am Groot?”

“Nah, can’t see,” he answered, shouldering his rifle and scrambling up Groot’s back, straining to piece together the fragmented glimpses of the three Asgardians as they cleared their way through the writhing mass of enemies.He spotted a spray of green-tipped braids and the white flash of a grin as the distant warrior swung their battleaxe in a wicked arc that sent pirates flying back three-at-a-time. “One of ‘em’s Gryff.”

Groot hummed, striding forward and swiping a few rushing Starjackers into the air while Rocket whooped. Bronze helms flashed, and Rocket shouted over to them. “Friendlies to your left, Asgardians!”

“Friendlies to your right, Guardians!” answered Gryff, raising a gauntleted arm in recognition. 

The fighter behind them nodded curtly, then lashed out with their neural disrupter whip, catching a pirate around the leg and enveloping them in a miasma of dark, glittering energy. They spasmed, back rigid in a rictus of pain. The Asgardian hauled back on the whip handle, drawing the Starjacker in and slamming a fist to their face. The whip released and the pirate collapsed. The Asgardian turned, and Rocket could see cold blue eyes set in a thin white face.

Greyval. Rocket sneered. The last Asgardian bent to the wounded pirate and made sure they stayed down, cutting their head off with a short curved sword. Long blond hair escaped his helm as he glanced their way, and he muttered something to the Greyval that made him smirk. That dumb flark who’d insulted the Milano. Liev?

“The other two’re Greyval and what’s-his-face. Leaf or something,” he relayed to Groot as he climbed down. Groot made a small creaking noise of distaste, waiting for Rocket to touch ground and moving off toward the far end of the hall.

“I am Groot!” he roared, new vines bristling from his back, thorny branches tearing out from his forearms. 

He waded into the fight, sending unfortunate Starjackers flying in all directions with heavy sweeping swings. Rocket took potshots at the easy targets, sprinting in Groot’s wake.

“We’re taking the bridge!” he yelled over his shoulder, realizing the others hadn’t gotten the message.

“We’ve got your back!” shouted Gryff, yanking their axe from a pirate’s chest, following up with an unceremonious boot. They jogged down the walkway, pulling a detonator from their belt and lobbing it toward a cluster of bandits hunkered down behind a wide console. A flash of heat, smoke, and then the console was nothing more than a lump of slag and sparking cables, the pirates behind it reduced to mounds of charcoal.

Rocket rolled under a volley of incoming fire and sent a controlled salvo back, dropping three Starjackers that had tried cutting between him and Groot. Not the smartest tactical choice.

“More from behind!” he heard, and he spun to see a screaming mob of Starjacker reinforcements rushing in from the back door. A few of them were lugging shoulder-mounted rocket launchers, and he concentrated fire on those. Priority targets. 

Gryff threw their axe, the wickedly sharp head burying itself in the gut of a pirate, who fell back against a couple of their fellows. Gryff raised their hand and clenched it into a fist, acid green runes blazing to life on their gauntlet. Rocket saw an answering bloom glow around the axe handle, and it tore itself free of the pirate corpse to return to its wielder. Greyval’s whip lashed out, catching arms, legs, necks, leaving pirates seizing and helpless, the points of contact smoking and stinking. Lief was fast and heavy, charging enemies and dropping to his knees to hamstring them as he slid past, doubling back to finish the job. 

A klaxon wailed, alarm lights flashing, and the corridor to the bridge sealed off—a heavy blast shield slammed into place and clipping off the front half of Groot’s leading foot in the process.

“I am Groot!” he roared, drawing himself up and swinging at the emboldened pirates who’d closed in when they thought he was down. Sheer numbers buried him, and he cried out again in pain.

“I’m comin’, Groot!” screamed Rocket, tucking his gun under his arm and running. He ducked a minirocket squealing towards him, dimly heard it impact behind him and felt a flush of heat at his back, but he was focused on getting to Groot. As he sprinted, he slung his rifle over his back, taking a concussive hand cannon from its holster at his side and blasting at the edges of the mob, careful not to shoot too close to his friend.

“Rocket—look out!” Gryff’s voice was close and held an edge of fear he hadn’t heard previously. 

He threw himself to the right on instinct, coming up to face the back of the hall. Adrenaline slowed everything down, muffled all sound. Gryff had launched themselves toward him, eyes wide and urgent as they reached out. Starjackers advancing in slow-motion behind them. But as numbingly slow as the scene moved, he still didn’t have time to think as the jet whip uncoiled towards him, only able to lift his useless hands and feel the sharp panic pierce his heart. A swell of power exploded from the back of his skull, and the whip fluxed violently, curling out and away from him and latching onto Gryff’s outstretched arm.

Everything came rushing back, and he dove for Gryff, who was already writhing on the ground, eyes rolled back and teeth clenched in pain from the neural field. He grabbed for the whip, trying to unwrap it from their arm, but his shield repelled it and his claws slipped uselessly against it. He heard the static crackle of the power drain alert from his shield, and snatched his hands away. He couldn’t help them if he was caught in the neural field too.

“Groot!” he screamed, going for the other arm and trying to bend Gryff’s fingers into a fist. “Groot! We need help!” 

They were seizing too violently, jerking their arm away every time he got close, so he slammed it to the ground and put his full body weight on top of it. He got the fist closed, saw the runes begin to light up.

A boot slammed him in the ribs and he went sprawling. Greyval strode over Gryff’s twitching body, lip curled in scorn. The pale smudge of Lief’s face drifted out of view, apparently content to let Greyval satisfy his grudge. He couldn’t see Groot, and the thought of his friend getting ambushed by that flarknard cramped his gut. He sat up, feeling at his belt for the detonator with one hand and reaching over to close Gryff's spasming fingers with the other.

“Disrespectful little pest,” Greyval spat, putting a foot down on Rocket’s chest and pressing deliberately until his back was crushed uncomfortably against the floor. He got Gryff's fist to clench, and gripped as tightly as he could. 

His shield alerted once, twice, and fizzled out, and he gritted his teeth as the full weight sank down on him. Don't let go, don't let go--you're flarked if you let go. He couldn't see if it was working.

“Well,” he panted, staring up at the Asgardian. “Better rude than ugly, you flarkging sack of shit.”

“You—” Greyval started, and then he was interrupted by a wet thunk. He choked, glare softening and a thin line of blood running from the corner of his mouth down his chin. He fell over, the green-glowing haft of Gryff’s axe sticking out of his back. 

Rocket coughed, scrabbling to his feet and tearing the axe from Greyval’s body. Heavier than he’d like, but he could still lift it. He hauled it up over his shoulder and brought it down on the whip. Gryff’s seizing stopped as the field dissipated. A few bolts sunk into the ground, not far from his feet and he brought his gun back up, shooting everything that moved. Lief had faded back, letting Starjackers stream between them.

Groot let out a howl of rage, and Rocket turned to see him shake five pirates off near the blast door, and thunder over to stand protectively over Rocket and Gryff. 

“Took your sweet time, pal,” said Rocket, keeping a bead on the glint of bronze. “You okay?”

“I am Groot.” He heard Groot move behind him. “I am Groot.”

He nodded grimly. Asgardian armor and physiology may have saved Gryff’s life, but there’d be no way of knowing the true extent of the neural whip’s damage until they were in the safety of a medbay. They’d have to deal with the pirates and traitors first. “You got them?”

“I am Groot,” Groot rumbled in assurance, and Rocket shot a glance behind him to see his friend scoop Gryff up in his arms and cradle them close to his chest. Interweaving vines stretched down from his shoulders and wound under his locked arms, forming a screen that would serve as a limited shield from fire. Groot grunted, sprouting a second set of arms that grew rapidly, more vines winding over his forearms to reinforce the new growth. He’d be exhausted later, but the big guy could probably hold out for a few more hours.

There was a wave of shouting at the back of the hall, Starjackers running toward them less out of aggression than fear of what followed, and stray bolts of orange and green shot out from their backs. More bronze armor, Angela’s trademark red hair and winged helm shining fiercely despite the distance. Gamora vaulted over the heads of a couple fleeing pirates, her sword a silver blur. She touched down and kept moving, leaving a trail of heads and limbs in her wake. Pete zigzagged through the scattered cover, picking his shots with care, but dropping stance when he saw Rocket and Groot across the way.

The crowd of Starjackers thinned out, and the other team approached, recoiling when they saw Greyval’s body. 

“Greyval?” asked Angela, approaching and turning the corpse to confirm, looking to Rocket with suspicion. “He would not have fallen to these pirates.”

“The rat killed him!” yelled Lief, emerging from behind some rubble, chest heaving. “And then it tried to kill me!”

“Say it again, blondie,” demanded Rocket, lining up the shot. “But this time with less bullshit.”

“I am Groot!” Groot agreed.

“The truth,” said Angela, voice ice cold and ribbons flaring threateningly.

Pete edged over closer to Rocket and Groot, folding his arms. “Listen, I know it’s kind of, uh, inglorious, but maybe he just got unlucky—”

“He tried to kill me,” said Rocket flatly. “Didn’t seem to care much that Gryff got in the way.”

“He’s lying!” shrieked Lief desperately, a vein popping on his forehead. He advanced, arms held out plaintively to Angela. “Are you really—”

“Where is Gryff?” asked Angela, a thundercloud on her brow. Behind her, the other Asgardian shifted her grip on her longsword, and glared at Rocket.

Groot straightened, some vines withdrawing so Gryff’s limp body could be seen.

“Are they alive?” she asked.

“I am Groot,” he said solemnly.

“Don’t let thi—huuckh!” 

Angela had moved too fast for Rocket to track, stepping up to Lief and jamming her sword up under his jaw and all the way through his skull with enough force to lift him off the ground. He choked for a few seconds, kicking feebly while blood ran over his eyes and down Angela’s forearm, and then went still. Angela’s lip curled and she lowered her sword, letting the body fall to the floor without ceremony.

“I wanted to pick my own crew,” she said to no one in particular.

“That’s not how it’s supposed to be done!” yelled the blonde woman, getting blotchy with anger. “He was one of our own!”

“He endangered the mission and attempted to instigate battle with an allied faction.” Angela had begun calmly enough, but when she turned to face the other Asgardian, Rocket could hear an edge of rage in her voice. “He was complicit in the injury of ‘one of our own’, and a traitor’s death is what he deserved.”

Blondie did not look mollified, but held her tongue nonetheless. Angela let out a long sigh and looked to the blast shield. 

“We should finish this.” 

She walked past the others.

Rocket sighed too—more of an aggrieved huff, really. The burst of adrenaline had ebbed, and his ribs hurt. There was a fatigued pinch behind his eyes that he had begun to associate with that psionic stuff, but it wasn’t too bad this time. Maybe he was getting stronger.

“You alright?” asked Pete, holstering a gun and brushing some grit off the front of Rocket’s armor where Greyval’s boot had pressed.

Rocket caught his hand and squeezed it, giving him a tight smile. “I’m still breathin’, ain’t I?”

“Lemme check.” Pete deactivated his helmet and bent, kissing him lightly on the lips and cupping his jaw with his free hand. “Yup, you’re good.”

He pulled away too soon, but Rocket buried his disappointment. They still had a job to do. Mushy flarkg later. “Told you so. Get goin’, dummy.”

Pete rolled his eyes and jogged off after Angela, who had given up on lifting the blast shield and progressed to the infinitely more technical strategy of punching massive dents in it.

“You should keep to support once we’re on the bridge,” said Gamora, wiping her blade clean on her armored thigh. She was eyeing the blonde Asgardian, suspicion frank in her eyes. “I don’t think she’ll try anything since she knows Angela would retaliate, but just the same.”

“Did you have any trouble on the way here?” asked Rocket, walking at her side.

She shook her head. “No trouble. Just…a feeling.”

“Got it.” 

They drew even with the rest, holding an uneven semicircle around Angela as she whaled on the wall, the blows echoing through the wide corridor. Pete was struggling to hide a smile, and eventually just gave up and reactivated his helmet. Rocket drifted closer to him, leaning against his legs and sighing with relief as some of the aches in his feet and back faded. The soreness of his ribs seemed to throb with each breath, but nothing felt broken. Groot hung back, vines twisting fretfully over Gryff’s makeshift cubby. Gamora stretched absently, watching Angela with her eyes half-lidded. The blonde Asgardian stewed, knuckles white on her longsword’s grip.

Angela had beat the crap out of the blast shield, digging deep pits in the metal, but hadn’t broken through yet. She grunted, slamming a boot against the malformed surface and creating a great crater that was about as wide as she was tall. She put a hand to its center, testing the thickness, and then drew her sword. With a long finger, she traced the length of the fuller, murmuring syllables that slid and twisted away from Rocket’s comprehension. Eerie violet flames licked up in the wake of her touch, bathing her in ghostly light. 

“Be prepared for resistance,” she announced to her audience. The purple flaming sword went up over her head, and then flashed in a perfect arc, tracing a circle within the weakened metal of the door. She twisted with the swing, unleashing a powerful side kick that blasted the orphaned chunk inward, and launched herself through the hole with a blood-curdling scream.

Whether it was the sight of their hypothetically impregnable blast shield being systemically deformed by the punches of an enraged Asgardian, or the unique spectacle of the aforementioned enraged Asgardian flying toward them with a giant flaming sword, the few pirates holed up in the bridge didn’t put up much of a fight. Gamora had followed her through, and the two wheeled through the small space, dancing as only they could. Not much left by the time they stopped for breath. 

Rocket smelled piss as he stepped through Angela’s improvised door. 

“Well,” said Pete brightly. “That’s the Starjackers taken care of. What next, gang?”

Angela grimaced, mumbling a word Rocket couldn’t make out. The violet flames guttered and subsided, retreating to an oddly colored gleam in the metal of the blade. She slid the sword back into its sheath. “We return to our ships. Provided we exit the jump safely, we take audience with Odin and return the relic.”

“So,” Pete hesitated, discomfort obvious in the silence. “Greyval?”

Angela closed her eyes, collecting herself. “Unfortunate. Odin will not be pleased, but the man acted rashly and out of arrogance. He will not hold your team responsible for defending themselves.”

The blonde scowled, but looked to the floor with something resembling shame. 

“Cool,” said Pete, rocking slightly on his toes and nodding. “Cool, cool. Um. I don’t know…what you have in terms of medical stuff, but, uh, you’re welcome to anything we have. For Gryff. Obviously.”

Angela inclined her head slightly. “Thank you. Our equipment should suffice for the remainder of the jump, but we would appreciate it if Groot could help carry them back to our ship.”

“I am Groot,” nodded Groot. He touched Rocket’s shoulder reassuringly as he passed, following the blonde out of the bridge and back down the hall the way they’d come.

Angela hung back. She looked down at her boots, the metal plating shining brightly beneath the blood spatter, and her mouth worked reluctantly.

“Rocket,” she said at length, looking him straight in the eyes. “I owe you twice over for the attempt on your life by my subordinates, and for your protection of another under my command. I do not like being in anyone’s debt.”

“Then uh, liquidate and we’ll call it good. I’ve got some debts that could use paying off, too,” he cracked, wanting to break the intense and mildly blinding gaze, but she didn’t waver.

“Units wouldn’t settle the balance,” she replied, lips quirking in a slight smile. “Call on me, if you have need.”

“Thanks, Red,” he said, and she nodded, turning her attention to Gamora, expression softening.

“Lady Gamora,” she said, taking her hand and bringing it to her lips, brushing the knuckles and smiling. “Always a pleasure to fight at your side—even if I must do the bulk of the killing.”

Gamora grinned, pulling her hand back and stepping closer to the other woman. “Always a joy to share a battle with you—though it pains me to see you have traded skill for enchantment.”

Angela laughed, leaning in to kiss her cheek. “And so you unsheathe your keenest blade. Farewell for now.”

Gamora’s smile deepened, and she went up on her tiptoes to plant one in return on the tip of Angela’s nose. “Until our paths cross again.”

“Not that this isn’t sweet, but, uh,” Pete pointed at his boots for emphasis. “We are literally ankle-deep in dead dudes right now.”

“Star Lord,” Angela nodded to him with a bemused smile. “See you on Asgard.” She waved and headed off after the remainder of her team, leaving the three Guardians standing in the wreckage of the Starjacker bridge.

“So I take it we’re not getting paid, then?” asked Rocket flatly to no one in particular.

Gamora snorted and walked off, picking her way around the bodies and stepping through the blast shield hole. Pete grinned and shook his head, following her.

“Let’s go, shit-for-brains.”

“Uh, excuse me?” Rocket bristled, jogging after him. “Listen, Captain Flarkface, I was attacked. We should be gettin’ twice what was on the table to start with.”

“Sure,” shrugged Quill, worn red leather stretching comfortably with the movement of his shoulders. “Makes sense to me, but I dunno if Odin’s gonna feel the same.”

“You’ve seen that throne room,” grumbled Rocket. “That guy has gold to spare.”

“So cranky. I’d’ve thought all the loot here would cheer you up.”

“Nah,” he said, a hand going to his complaining ribs. “Don’t feel like scavenging right now.”

Quill noticed the gesture and frowned in concern. 

“I’m fine,” he said reflexively. “Just some bruises is all. Gonna spend some quality time with an ice pack later.”

“Gotcha.” Quill didn’t push it, stretching his lower back and groaning theatrically. “Think I pulled something on the way up here.”

“Did you do one of those stupid combat rolls?” Rocket asked with suspicion. Quill’s defensive flinch was answer enough. “Dude. I told you to cut that glarkg out! It’s just makes you a target—it’s too noisy and slow.”

“Maybe when you do it.”

“Shut up, Quill.” Rocket watched the slow, steady push of Quill’s thumb as he massaged the small of his back. “I’ll take a look at that later, you big baby.”

Pete snorted, flashing him a grin over his shoulder. “Sure, act like you’re doin’ me the favor.”

Rocket scowled. “You know, this is why they don’t want you back on Earth.”

Pete didn’t fire back, and Rocket realized he’d been too harsh. He sighed and quickened his pace so they were moving side by side, and nudged the other man’s thigh with his elbow. Quill hesitated, then his hand drifted over to rest on Rocket’s far shoulderpad, toying with the worn blastware proofing on one corner.

“They don’t deserve you,” he muttered, so low he wasn’t even sure Quill had heard him. If he did, he didn’t react. 

Rocket felt a surge of frustration. He wanted to sink his claws into Quill and shake him, yell in his face that he was the best of them, that he deserved to leave that shitty, insular craphole without looking back. He deserved to be out here, with galaxies at his fingertips—what was one backwards ball of dirt compared to all possible worlds? A fractious, self-destructive people too blind to help themselves, much less anyone else. He wanted to cup Pete’s stupid face in his hands and tell him how hopelessly, utterly moronic he was if he couldn’t see how much good he was doing—had already done for the rest of the universe. Earth didn’t deserve him, didn’t deserve the irrational attachment he had to it despite the way its so-called heroes treated him every time he rushed to their rescue. Flark Earth.

Rocket forced himself to unclench his fists. They’d reached the mouth of the egress tunnel. Gam and Quill activated their space suits and headed into the tunnel, shifting light dappling their faces different colors. Rocket checked his suit’s monitor. Utterly drained from the fight. He found his spare in a side-pocket and activated it, feeling the familiar tingle of the energy field moving over his fur. 

The hush of the tunnel, the dancing colors of jumpspace, the sweet fatigue of a job finished should have been calming. Instead he felt anxious. Gam and Pete weren’t moving fast enough. They’d cut through the Starjacker ship like a knife through prakkir cheese, but what if they’d missed some? What if a few terrified, angry pirates had made it through the assault and gone up to the bridge, input their escape sequence and exited the jump, leaving the egress tunnel and whatever the Asgardians had come through exposed to the vacuum and the extradimensional fabric of jumpspace? 

A suit would only hold you for so long, and even if you managed to exit the jump’s stream, there was no telling where you’d come out. Stranded in the void was the most likely scenario, but you could also pop out in the middle of a sun or stuck halfway through a transport vessel’s hull. Not a question he wanted answered.

“Can we get a move on, already?” he hollered at the others, shouldering past them and jogging down the tunnel at a pace he hoped wasn’t obviously frantic.

“Chill, man, we got like—” Quill checked his chronometer. “Two hours before the jump resolves.”

“An’ you wanna spend that walking?” he snarled over his shoulder.

The two humanoids looked to each other, shrugged, and started trotting after him.


	13. Take the Money and Run

Once they’d made it back aboard the Milano and confirmed that Groot and Angela’s party had returned to their ship safely, and Rocket had tended to the hull-breach equipment and lugged the collapsed egress tunnel back from the airlock, he only had an hour to wait. Rocket didn’t want to spend it thinking about a formal Asgardian reprimand. He hung out in his room for a bit, sorting the remaining loot from Aethra’s moon and taking deep, steady breaths to gently stretch his ribs. Still hurt. He closed his eyes and saw the whip striking out at him, saw it flux and wrap eagerly around the hand Gryff had extended in aid. 

Not his fault. He’d reacted instinctively—shoving out at it in panic, blasting with a force he still didn’t fully understand or control. It was just bad luck that the whip had rebounded that way. Bad luck that Gryff had been close enough to get hit.

Not my fault, he told himself. But he’d never been good at shutting off that part of his brain that argued, and it was delighted to disagree. If he’d looked at the situation rationally, he could have pushed the whip in a different direction. If he’d taken a dive, the initial blow would probably have missed him. Probably. Or Gryff could have knocked him out of the way.

No, he shook his head, picking a hand-held EMP generator out of the “domestic goods” pile and putting it with the other items in the “disruption-inducing” mound. They had been too far away, moving too slow. They were hurt because Greyval had decided to take a personal grudge to ludicrous extremes. Not his fault.

“Rock, you doin’ alright in there?” Quill’s muffled voice sounded from behind his door. He knocked a couple times.

He looked over, opening his mouth to answer and then sighing instead. He pulled himself up, groaning at the ache in his ribs, and went to the door, unlatching the locks and keying it open.

Pete had ditched the coat and showered, the smell of fake pine strong. His eyes were wide, brows peaking in concern. “I thought you’d touch base once things settled. Everything okay?”

“Sure. Why wouldn’t I be?” Rocket cocked his head, turning back to his pile of loot. “Come in if you want.”

Pete laughed nervously. “You’re kidding, right? Uh…shit with Greyval was flarked up. Thought you might want to, uh, talk it through.”

Rocket shrugged, scooting a little so Pete had enough clear space to sit. The half-Terran plopped down heavily, crossing his legs with difficulty and only knocking over one of Rocket’s junkpiles.

“Lean,” he said, reaching over and correcting the damage. Pete’s fingers touched lightly at the small of his back. His ears flicked back, but he focused on the loot. “Got it.”

The gentle touch smoothed out into a full, warm palm steadying his shoulderblades, He sighed, letting Pete take more of his weight. 

“Nothin’ to talk through,” he said, closing his eyes as Pete began to scratch in small circles. “It happened, he’s dead, it’s over.”

“Mkay, but,” Pete scooted closer, free hand fiddling with the fastening on his boots. “You’re smart enough to see that it’s more than that. If you need—”

“I’m ‘smart enough’, huh?” he echoed, snorting and glancing at him sidelong. “Thanks for the stellar praise, jackass.”

Pete rolled those big blue eyes and smiled. “Listen, trug. You know you’re the smartest motherflarker with a personality and corporeal form I’ve ever met.”

“Weird that you gotta qualify it, but okay,” laughed Rocket, butting his head against Pete’s side. “More praise, babe.”

“I can do that,” Pete grinned. “You’re uh, the best at blowjobs. You make the biggest explosions. You’re almost funnier than me—”

“Um, ‘almost’?”

Pete snickered, planting a kiss behind Rocket’s ear. “Shush, I’m not done.”

Rocket’s eyes were burning, and he followed the gentle suggestions of Pete’s hands to climb over and sit in his lap as his boyfriend rained gentle kisses over his muzzle and forehead.

“You are so good with a blaster,” Quill murmured between kisses. “Like, scary good. I’d trust you to cut my hair with a plasma ray from a mile off, that’s how good you are.”

Rocket laughed wetly, resting his forehead against Pete’s chest. Suddenly his hands were shaking, muscles watery, and his throat was tight. He took in great, heaving gasps of Quill-scented breath as the half-Terran traced glyphs on his back.

“You have the best laugh. I love how you never back down from a fight. I love how adventurous you are with food and how you can drink, like seventy-percent of the people we meet under the table.” Pete’s hands slipped up the back of his neck and around to cup his cheeks softly, not trying to move him—just to be there. “I love, uh…you, I guess? A-and I love how you can learn anything and everything like that and just be fantastic at it. I love how you steal all this shit and turn it into money.”

Rocket’s fists tightened in Quill’s shirt, the word ‘love’ echoing in his skull. Love? Like that? So fast. Was that how it worked—was that how he was supposed to feel? Was that what he felt? How was he supposed to sift through all the crap in his head to define “love”? 

“I…” his voice cracked and he cleared his throat.

“Sorry, I shouldn’t’ve…” he felt Pete shake his head, then kiss between his ears. “I love watching you fix stuff. You’re so…attentive, and focused. When you concentrate, it’s like your whole world narrows down and everything stops, and you just go to work until you’re finished, and it’s perfect.”

“Weirdo,” he said softly. “Watchin’ me all the time.”

Pete’s laugh rumbled up in his chest and Rocket could feel it in his bones. His breathing had steadied.

“D’you, uh—should I do that for you?” he asked, nuzzling against Quill’s chest. “Because I could. I could go on for days about everything I like about you.”

Quill snorted. “Just days?”

“Shuddup.” He sniffed, wiping his nose surreptitiously on Quill’s shirt. “What about your back—you still hurtin’?”

“Ew, dude. I saw that.” Pete leaned back, inspecting the wet marks. “Gross. Also, yeah. Kinda.”

“Go back to extolling my virtues, huh?” Rocket scowled, tugging Quill’s shirt up over his stomach. “Get this off and get on the bed.”

“Okay, okay,” he said, pulling it the rest of the way off his head. “Yes, captain.”

Rocket snorted, clambering off Pete’s lap and going to his cabinet. “So was it just your signature Star Dork stunts, or did you get hit with something?”

“Just my classic, thrilling heroics, thank you very much.” Pete picked around the piles of loot and collapsed on the bed. “Oh, fuck.”

“See? That’s what being dramatic gets ya.” Rocket pawed through the drawer, pushing various toys aside until he found the ones that would work. 

“No, not my back,” Quill groaned, snatching up Rocket’s pillow and propping himself up with it. “Your flarkin’ bed. It’s like your mattress is stuffed with rocks. Is it, actually?”

“No. You’re just a baby.” Rocket put the devices up next to him and jumped up on the bed. “Okay, lemme know when I’m on it.”

He touched gingerly, pressing down the slope of Pete’s back until he hissed. “Yeah, that does feel tense. Alright.”

He started massaging around the site, edging closer as the muscle beneath his fingers began to relax. He grabbed the biggest device and activated it, sending a low buzz through the room. Pete’s back flinched as the other man laughed.

“Dude, is that a vibrator?”

“It helps! Give it a minute.”

Pete scoffed, shifting a little. “No, I don’t doubt you, but, uh…is it clean?”

“Sure.” Rocket activated the other two and laid them on either side of the big one. “These too.”

“Ooh, I wanna press you on that, but it feels too good to argue,” Quill sighed, stretching.

Rocket snorted. “You gonna give me shit for makin’ my own toys?”

“Fuck no—that is cool as shit and you should definitely make me some when you have the time,” Quill grunted as Rocket put more pressure on them. “You just, um, tend to have very flexible standards of hygiene.”

“Wow, that cuts deep, Quill,” Rocket activated the other settings. “Your opinion on that subject means so much to me, what with your leaving dirty clothes out all over the ship, an’ never doin’ the dishes—”

“Whoa, are they supposed to be heating up, or should I be making peace with my god?”

Rocket grinned. “Yeah, you’re good. No explosions imminent.”

“Mm, good, because although they should definitely go out with a bang—”

“Dude, you are such a moron.”

“Oh-h, I’m not mad because what you’re doing is so freakin’ good,” said Pete, letting his arms dangle down the sides of the bed.

Rocket smirked, rolling the impromptu massagers steadily along the curve of Pete’s back, letting his legs stretch comfortably against the soft warmth of his sides. Pete sighed again, nuzzling his face to Rocket’s pillow. What he could see of the other man’s expression looked contented—at ease. A new ache grew beneath his ribs, a raw need to keep that vulnerability safe, to defend it at all costs. He wanted to touch Pete’s cheek, but that would mean moving and jeopardizing the lazy peace that had surrounded them. Inevitable, but he didn’t want it to end so soon.

Pete was breathing deeply, louder than normal, and as Rocket listened, the breaths began to mellow out into a low hum. Aimless, meandering through simple notes with a lazy sunniness that was mirrored in his smile. Rocket tried to keep his motions regular, not to disrupt the unexpected sweetness of each unsteady sound. Quill, uninterrupted, grew louder, notes lengthening and running together into something cohesive that Rocket could almost recognize.

Suddenly he rolled over on one elbow, throwing an arm out to catch Rocket as the vibrators fell to the floor, and he burst into full song.

“It’s gonna take money!” he yelled, voice ringing off the walls of the small room and setting Rocket’s ears back. “A whole lotta spendin’ money!”

“Shh!” gasped Rocket, laughing despite himself as Quill scooped him closer and, grinning, kissed the top of his muzzle.

“It’s gonna take patience and time,” sung Pete much more quietly, making eye contact that Rocket couldn’t bring himself to break. “To do it up right, yeah!”

“Go back to the money bit,” cracked Rocket, punching him lightly on the chest. “To the tune of twenty-five hundred units, please.”

Pete scowled, shifting more comfortably on his side so Rocket could lie facing next to him. “I serenade you from the bottom of my heart, and you ask me for money that I borrowed a lifetime ago? Not romantic, babe.”

“You’re the one started wailin’ about money!” Rocket protested. “An’ it’s only borrowed if you make good on giving it back, you trug.”

Quill made a face. “Listen, I’ll buy you a drink on Asgard. We’ll hash things out.”

“Dunno if they’ll let us get drinks after the audience,” mused Rocket, propping himself up on his elbow. “Might get banned from Asgard-space for a bit.”

Quill frowned. “That seems extreme. We’ve helped the space-vikings out a few times before—they gotta understand it was self-defense.”

“Maybe.” Rocket had his doubts, but he didn’t want to make Pete worry any more than he already was. He should really check the scan results, but if they didn’t make it through the jump, it’d be moot anyway. He’d get to it later if there was a later. “We should head to the bridge.”

Pete sighed, getting up with a dissatisfied pout. “At least the chairs there are comfier than this torture slab you call a bed.”

“You’re such a delicate princess,” grinned Rocket, hopping down and keying open the door. “Sorry we don’t got a long, plush carpet to roll out for your fragile feetsies.”

“Keep talking like that and one of these fragile feetsies is gonna go straight up your ass, Rock,” said Pete, following and pretending to glare.

“Kick me and I recalibrate your sound-system so all your shit is pitch-shifted,” he warned.

Pete gasped behind him but didn’t retaliate.

They walked in comfortable silence, passing through the conference hub and heading up to the bridge. The ship felt empty, and Rocket hoped Groot was doing alright over on the Asgardian vessel. When they entered the bridge, Gam was lounging in her usual seat already, changed into a clean set of armor and picking at the worn leather of her chair’s arms with a preoccupied frown. She spared them a glance and a nod when they came in.

“There you are,” she said. “I was thinking about hailing the Asgardians. Touch base before we come out of the jump. See how Gryff’s doing.”

Pete nodded, flopping into his seat. “Yeah, we probably should. I mean, I’m sure they’re okay, but it’s the po—”

“In the event that they are not,” interrupted Gamora, “I think we should consider leaving as soon as we can get Groot back aboard.”

Rocket grunted approvingly, but Pete looked surprised.

“Cutting and running? That makes us look so much worse than we already do!” he protested. “These guys aren’t the Kree, okay? They’ll get what went down.”

“Angela is not in good standing with Odin,” said Gam, eyes narrowed. “The results of their mission, while a technical success, will not be received gladly.”

“Gryff made it sound like that Greyval flark was some kind of personal informant to the big dude,” said Rocket. “Dunno where that blonde chick stands, but if Gryff can’t vouch for what happened, Angie’s the only one on our side, and if she doesn’t have any pull, it’s not gonna be real great for us.”

Pete scowled. “We’ve helped them out before—they’re not just gonna decide we’re foes to Asgard because one of their overpromoted dickbags was a specist idiot.”

“How did they find the device again, Peter?” asked Gam, sarcasm heavy in her voice. “Don’t we have a history of stealing powerful cosmic items? Odin is many things, paranoid and calculating foremost among them. What would sound better to the common folk? Our protection against an immortal psionic force was stolen by a random thief, or by the Guardians of the Galaxy?”

“And where’s the resolution in getting it handed back to ‘em when they could say they recovered it themselves after a pitched battle, and actually present those responsible for public disciplining?” drawled Rocket. “What, you think it’s a better PR move to say ‘yeah, our security was shit actually, and the dude got away, but these guys saved our shit again’?”

Peter shook his head reluctantly. “You guys are such glass-empty types. Flarkin’ depressing. But I hear what you’re saying and, okay, maybe we should be ready for that kind of heel-face-turn.”

“Thank you.” Gamora leaned back in her chair, checking weapons and shield systems.

“But!” Pete’s finger hovered over the comm’s button. “I say we don’t run unless we have to. We cooperated in good faith, and they do have their magic doohickey back, so let’s just check in and go from there.”

Rocket shrugged and Gam didn’t argue, so he hailed the other ship.

“Hey, Angie—everything okay over there?” he asked. “How’s Gryff?”

They waited a few moments in silence, watching the colors of jumpspace shift through the dash. Then:

“They’re okay. For now. We’ll be running some tests with Asgard’s healers, but they’re awake and responsive.”

Pete shot the other two a smug told-you-so smile. “That’s good to hear.”

“Tell ‘em thanks,” called Rocket haltingly. “For the heads-up.”

“Will do.”

“An’ make sure Groot eats!” he added quickly. “All that extra growth he had to do is gonna hit him pretty quick here, and he’s kind of a dumbass about refueling.”

“I am Groot!”

“You know you are!” he snarled back, relieved to hear his friend. “Remember Goolr’avi 7? I had to lug your stupid butt over a flarking mountain because you regrew your legs and then turned your nose up at some perfectly good fried eel. Red—make him eat somethin’.”

“I am Groot,” he rumbled resentfully.

“We’ve got some ration bars in the galley—we’ll make sure he eats something,” assured Angela wryly.

Rocket eyed the navigation console, watching the numbers tick down. Jump would be ending in three…two…

The psychedelic whirling of color dispersed with dizzying speed, giving way to the cool metallic green nebula cradling the copper sphere of Asgard, needle flashes of bronze and silver ships darting through orbit. He took a steadying breath before hopping down and stumping out of the cockpit.

“I’m gonna unsync us,” he called over his shoulder to Gam and Pete. “No jumps until I say so.”

“Yes sir, Rocket, sir,” hollered Pete, and he grinned, bringing up his holo records of the jump drive’s layout. Idiot.

Rewiring was a quick job, and he felt a lot more relaxed with his engine room squared away. He paged through the stills once more just to check that everything was correct, and started guiltily when he saw the side of a brown hand, sketchy diagram of black ink matching his layout. Aw, hell. He hoped they wouldn’t get in trouble for modifying the drive on top of everything else. Maybe he could go back aboard when they touched down on Asgard, and make sure it was back to specs since they were probably too busy being injured to do it themselves.

He felt the ship humming under his footpads and scowled, jogging back to the bridge.

“What’s goin’ on?” he demanded when he reentered the cockpit.

“We’re landing,” answered Pete cheerfully, as if he couldn’t tell from the wisps of atmosphere breaking across their windshield.

“Mkay, but what’s the plan?” he asked, sidling back into his seat and making small corrections to their course, smoothing out their descent. “We sticking around? Or makin’ a break for it once Groot’s back on?”

“Let’s stick it out—see what happens,” said Pete, flashing him a grin. “It’ll be fine—Gryff’s okay, and between them and Angie, we’ll be vouched for.”

Rocket rolled his eyes, looking to Gamora for support. 

She shrugged. “I’m hungry. Let’s just see if there’s a feast.”

“You idiots are gonna get me killed,” he grumbled, watching the shining spires and grandiose sculptures of Asgard’s main city rise up through the cloud layer, the glittering sea twinkling up at them.

Angela’s ship drew ahead, guiding them down to a landing site next to the great golden palace. An armored guard was standing in formation, and the three Guardians drew a collective sigh. The weapons on display looked more ceremonial than functional, but with Asgardians it was always tough to tell.

“Every little thing,” sung Pete just above his breath, “Is gonna be alright!”

Gamora snorted, grinning, and Rocket shook his head. They waited while Angela debarked, watched the small party of Groot and the blonde Asgardian, a slow-moving Gryff suspended between them, make its way to the guard. Whatever Angela was saying seemed to put the grunts at ease, and she turned back to the Guardian’s ship with an inviting wave.

“Cool,” nodded Pete, standing up and stretching. “Told you losers. Let’s go.”

“Remember we need some flarkging units,” said Rocket, following the other two out. “Free food is good, but it don’t buy ship fuel.”

“Yes, yes,” waved Gamora dismissively, adjusting her armor as they walked. “I hope they have those meat pies again. Remember last time? Tasted like kratt dragon.”

“Ooh, yeah, with the spice crumble on top? Those were great,” agreed Pete.

“Stop talking about food—we gotta focus on the possibility that this is gonna go balls-up!” he protested, but his stomach was growling now.

“Ooh, remember that plum cake?” said Gamora, grinning and smacking Pete’s shoulder with the back of her hand as the cargo door lifted and the gangplank descended. “With the sugar crystals?”

Quill groaned, slapping his stomach. “Dude, stop. I’m not gonna make it.”

They fell in behind the threesome from the other ship, just in time for Angela to return with word that Odin would receive them in the throne room.

“Great!” said Pete. “Did he, ah, happen to say anything about a feast?”

“Did you get anything to eat?” demanded Rocket at Groot’s back.

“I am Groot,” he said, turning with a bemused grin.

“Did you really?” he frowned skeptically. “You’re not just saying that?”

“I am Groot!” swore Groot, putting a hand to his chest.

“I’m missing a few words, but I did see him eat a couple ration bars during the descent,” said Gryff with a crooked grin.

“Good. He’s an idiot,” said Rocket awkwardly, taking in the strained lines in their face and the burst vessels in the whites of their eyes. “Um. You doin’ okay?”

“Yeah—you know, a little fried, but I’m good.” Gryff shrugged. “Sorry about…the whole thing with Greyval. He was an ass and will not be missed. Lief too.”

“You don’t gotta be sorry,” snorted Rocket, glancing back at their ship. “Hey, d’you want me to go in and reconfigure your jump drive? I got your preset saved in my holos.”

They shook their head. “Thanks, but…it’s already been logged. I appreciate it, though.”

“Yeah, sure.” He didn’t know what else to say, so they walked on through the vaulted halls without talking, passing great brassy statues of various beefy warriors, and pastel mosaics of dramatic battle scenes. 

The floors were some kind of creamy marble, perfectly smooth and polished to reflection. Attendants stood at junctures to other halls, backs straight and faces blank, and Rocket felt his lip curl. He wondered how long they had to stand there and if that was the extent of their duties. Maybe after a few decades of standing in place they got to graduate to towel duty at the royal bathhouse.

They reached the end of the long hall, drawing up to a great set of golden doors, engraved with runes and blocky caricatures of significant figures in Asgardian history, the pull leaves fashioned in the shapes of dual ravens. Their escort parted, twisting the hafts of their spears, the blades elongating and curving into hooks. Three men on each side latched onto the pulls and heaved as one, drawing the massive doors open and revealing the opulence of the throne room. The creamy marble turned smoky, inlaid with rich strips of black quartz, drawing up to a raised obsidian dias. Center stage was a gleaming golden throne, long-necked dragons flanking the red velvet back and crouched reverently, offering their backs as armrests to the venerable patriarch that reclined there, robed in stormy blue cloth. His false eye looked ancient, iron-wrought and carved with deep, stylish lines, gleaming dully next to the pale blue flash of his real one. His snowy beard drifted over a silver breastplate, and fingers clicking with heavy rings combed through it meditatively as he watched their party enter.

“Aldrif, dearest daughter,” he called, recrossing his sandaled feet. “Have you returned victorious?”

“As if I would return any other way,” Angela answered proudly, lifting her head. Her hair fell over her shoulders like a scarlet cloak, ribbons dancing at her golden heels. She slung a tooled leather satchel over her shoulder and reached within, pulling out the small wooden bowl and holding it aloft.

“Braggi’s Lyre, secured with the aid of the Guardians of the Galaxy and returned to its rightful home,” she declared, voice filling the wide chamber. Rocket nodded, glad she was doing this formally.

“Excellent.” Odin nodded to the attendant at his side, swathed in purple silks, and they came forward to take the instrument from her. “Anything unusual to report?”

He asked it lightly, but all attending could feel the sharp intent of his question.

Angela scowled. “We lost two men in a Starjacker ambush before arriving here. With the help of the Guardians, we did not lose a third.”

The lines in his brow deepened. “And what of the thief?”

“Dead on Aethra’s moon. Devoured by beasts before he could face justice,” she answered.

Odin hummed with disproval. “One lying child is difficult enough, Aldrif. Do not be so foolish as to mistake my patience for…complacency.”

Rocket could swear the false eye moved, fixing on him for a moment before returning to normal. He frowned.

Angela didn’t flinch. “The thief’s fate is most likely what I have described. We searched the refugees from the moon when we landed on the main planet and none had evidence of having visited Asgard recently. Remains on the moon were too fully digested or destroyed for definitive confirmation. Regardless, the Lyre is returned to you and our mission is complete.”

Odin’s eye narrowed. “So it is. I had hoped your first command would be a more decisive victory, my daughter.”

She lifted her head. “Had I been allowed my own choice in team, I can assure you that it would have been. Father.”

He shook his head, giving her a thin smile that did not reach his eyes. “Your time in Heven has deprived you of a respect for protocol. You will be granted more freedoms when you have demonstrated you will utilize them responsibly.”

She grinned, white eyes flaring. “And how long would you have me bow and scrape, blunting my sword on unworthy enemies and running your errands before you would give me a challenge worthy of my abilities? In Heven I was an angel without wings, but none would dare forbid me from flying.”

The air grew thick, a low rumble shaking the bones of everyone in audience as Odin’s face darkened. 

“Must you learn each lesson I have had to teach your younger brother?” he growled. “You are still on trial, young one.”

She spread her arms. “For what crime? Being abandoned as a babe? Averting Surtr’s return through the marrow of my little sister? I do not hold you accountable for your past, but you would imprison me in mine. I came out of curiosity and I stayed for the same, but I tire of being saddled with imaginary debts.”

“Enough,” boomed Odin, robes swirling with a wind that had arisen from nowhere. “Your impertinence will not be borne.”

Pete raised his hand, and everyone looked at him, wide-eyed.

“…Yes?” Odin asked at length, curiosity and irritation battling for dominance in his expression.

“Um, yeah, hi—your All-Fatherness?” said Pete, giving a smile that looked more like a wince. “This seems like a family matter, and with all due respect, we were hoping to uh, pay our respects and fly elsewhere if our business is concluded. We kinda left a teammember on a different planet and he gets anxious if we’re away for too long. Also, if there’s some kind of…reward, maybe? For helping with your mind-control instrument thing? We’d really appreciate it.”

Rocket bit his tongue and he heard Groot groan with second-hand embarrassment behind him. Gamora kept a straight face, but one eyebrow was slowly drifting upwards.

Odin blinked, turning to another purple-clad assistant. “Transfer two thousand units to their account and show them back to their ship.”

“Thank you, your Holiness, sir,” called Pete, bobbing a clumsy bow and grinning, and Rocket wanted to pull him aside and kiss those stupid cheeks. Making out in Odin’s throneroom wouldn’t be the best move, diplomatically, but shit he was relieved that Pete’s special brand of affected awkwardness was getting them out of another sticky situation. 

Angela glanced back, giving Quill a smirk and nodding to Gamora as their escort filed between the Guardians and the remains of her team. Rocket held a hand up in a brief wave, hoping she wouldn’t get yelled at too much. Nothing spoke more truly to her being an unofficial Guardian than her double helping of daddy issues and problems with authority figures, and he’d be surprised if she spent much longer in Asgard if Odin didn’t change his tune.

“Nice to meet you guys,” mouthed Gryff after them, and Groot creaked wistfully as the doors closed between them and they were ushered down the long hall again.

“I know, bud,” said Rocket, giving the big guy a sympathetic pat on the leg. “Least we got paid, though.”

“Flark I wanted one of those pies,” grumbled Gamora under her breath, and Pete laughed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this took forever! Asgard is behind us for now, and the team's headed back to pick up Drax. Next chapter will probably be shorter, but the plot will be picking up in a big way.
> 
> I feel like Pete sometimes ups the doofus factor intentionally to disarm people, and it's super effective for folks that take themselves too seriously. 
> 
> As always, thanks for sticking around--lemme know if anything doesn't work, and I hope you're enjoying it!


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